(no subject)

[lady_t_220]

Finished uploading at last. Here's my Portmeirion flickr set and here's the scattering of other places we got to.

Though it has to be said, I haven't been so damn geekily excited by a place in fucking YEARS.

Which considering that I haven't watched The Prisoner since I was about 11 is really saying something.

Comments

[hermit.livejournal.com]

Your pics are awesome. I *adore* The Prisoner (own it on DVD) and I always wanted to see Portmeirion for myself. Instead, I get to live vicariously thru you!

[lady-t-220.livejournal.com]

Prisoner associations aside, it's a really, genuinely, stunningly beautiful place. The photos don't do it any kind of justice at all.
It has a very bizarre, almost fictional feel to it, like you wandered into a painting of a village that isn't quite real but would be amazing if it was. Kind of halfway between Toytown and high art, if that makes any sense. Which is I guess what it is, given as it was built with the intention of making an already beautiful place even more beautiful. I don't think it's possible to argue it's success on that score.

It's also, honestly, a lot smaller than it appears on the screen. Re-watching clips on Youtube they did some very creative editing to make the Village on screen look substantially larger than the actual place.

[hermit.livejournal.com]

Now I want to see it even MORE, dammit.

Is it an actual place where people, ya know, LIVE, or is it just a touristy thing?

[lady-t-220.livejournal.com]

It was originally part of a private estate. So technically it could be considered an architectural folly, but as it's effectively a full-size village it's now partially a hotel, part holiday cottages you can rent, a wedding venue, and there are shops and cafes scattered through it. I don't *think* anyone actually lives full-time in the village itself, but the blue and white building down by the stone boat is a hotel, as is Deudraeth castle, which was the original centre of the estate before Portmeirion itself was actually built.
So it was built because the guy who built it really liked architecture, he saw it develop into a hotel and holiday village, and because people kept turning up to look around they put an entrace fee of five shillings on the gate, and thus it became a touristy thing.
So yeah... potted history.

[hermit.livejournal.com]

*nods*

I remember reading that Patrick McGoohan loved the place. I guess it was his idea to use it in The Prisoner?

[lady-t-220.livejournal.com]

Oh, I should think so, yes. And I can totally understand why. I think if you woke up there with no idea how you got there and with no way to escape you'd go pretty mental as well.

[hermit.livejournal.com]

I dunno.... Seems to me like a pretty wonderful place to 'lose yourself' in.

((grin))

[lady-t-220.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is true, but like I said the whole place has a very weird, not-real kind of feeling. I can totally understand why he picked it as a place that could be so thoroughly inexplicable.

[hermit.livejournal.com]

And thank goodness for us that he did!