A campanile perches on a hillside. Shuttered houses and palazzi in sorbet pinks, violets and lemons swirl up to a bauble-domed basilica atop a cliff. A graceful colonnade rises above a fountain-splashed, palm-rimmed piazza. Cobbled paths dance through ornate gates and arches, past stucco busts, shell grottos, ionic columns and Burmese dancers, a bronze of Hercules carrying the world on his shoulders. Walled terraces and loggias trip down to the glinting sea. Hot-pink camelias are blooming with the first whisper of spring.
Walking through the gates of Portmeirion is a Dorothy arrives in Oz moment: Wales in technicolour; Italy on acid. If I squint a bit and edit out the cold, spitty drizzle of a late-February day, the sheep, the rows of nodding daffodils, and the dark peaks of Snowdonia popping on the horizon – why yes, it’s almost the Amalfi Coast. But frankly I wouldn’t want to imagine myself anywhere else.
