Portmeirion

Following my post about dawn at the estuary, here are some more photos of the wonderful private village of Portmeirion in North Wales.  For those not familiar with the history, the village was the dream of a chap called Clough Williams-Ellis, who painstakingly brought his vision to life over the decades from 1925 until his death in the late 1970s.  It's a complete indulgence, all this Italian style architecture in the far North of Wales.  Today it's owned by a charity, and day visitors can pay an entrance fee to explore the village for the day.  Alternatively, you can pay (fairly heftily) to stay in the guest accommodation on site.  There's the main hotel building, the village buildings, and the castle further up the hill.  As we were travelling a fair way from South Wales, I decided we should definitely stay.  We couldn't have timed it better with the weather - arriving in 31 degree heat, it felt like we'd stepped off a plane rather than out of my car!

First stop then was a dip in the pool, which is heated these days, a step up from when there would have been a bracing freshwater pool in the 1920s.  The pool is small but was just what we needed after a 4 hour drive in warm weather, and feeling refreshed, we explored the village a little.  It's a compact site, centred around some beautiful gardens.  There are lots of little shops and places to eat, including a 'diner' style cafe in the Town Hall, and an ice-cream parlour.  If the filming of the 1960s TV series 'The Prisoner' interests you then you can visit the gift shop, which I think was Number 6's cottage in the programme.  The village is surrounded by woodland, and there are lots of paths veering off if you're feeling exploratory.  You'll come across little follies and look-out points if you do.  After a quick change, it was then time for drinks on the hotel terrace, followed by a picnic overlooking the estuary.  Apparently the restaurant is top-notch, but it is pricey, and we were a bit too hot to sit inside for a formal dinner.  We had cold salmon and salad off plastic plates, washed down with some wine.  Classy!

Work Trip To Greece

I've been offline a bit more over the past few weeks, partly due to a busy schedule, partly due to illness, but mainly because I had to go to Greece for work!  I normally don't even leave my office much, so this was quite an event.  I was presenting my research at an international conference, on the beautiful peninsula of Halkidiki.  I'd had to leave my house at 2:30am and reached the hotel over 12 hours later, but my was it worth it - this was the view from my room.

 

  

Cardigan Quayside Granary Lofts and Pizza Tipi

We make several trips each year to West Wales, and were last there for 'Octoberfest'.  One of the highlights is always when we get to visit the Pizza Tipi in Cardigan, which is a riverside mini festival of bars, food and music.  It's run by the Fforest enterprise, which also offers a range of accommodation from pods, bell tents and cabins to swanky riverside apartments.  We've stayed on a few occasions now in the apartments, which have been marvellously converted in an old 18th century granary loft.  With Scandi-Welsh interiors, the apartments are fully kitted out for a self-catering stay in comfort.
 

Luxury Granada Hotel Review: Hotel Casa 1800

Continuing with my hotel reviews from our Andalusian honeymoon, our second stop was Granada where we stayed at the gorgeous boutique Hotel Casa 1800, nestled in the old quarter beneath the spectacular Alhambra palace.  I was determined when we visited the historic city that we would have a room with a view, and I wasn't disappointed.

Luxury Seville Hotel Review: Hotel Ateneo

Ah, Seville!  Now that we have dark evenings here and it's getting colder, I'm reminiscing about what a wonderful city it was (and how warm it was!).  It was the perfect starting point for our Andalusian honeymoon.  We stayed in an impressively gilded and antiqued hotel, Hotel Ateneo, a luxury boutique type hotel.  We stayed for two nights and had a suite with possibly the biggest bed in Spain.  Our room was number 303, the Junior Suite.  Apparently the main suite has a Neo-Gothic library, but our budget didn't quite stretch to that and I thought that a honeymoon is not the time to be doing a lot of reading.