A little bit of history of the Summer Palace because everyone likes a little bit of history just before they see all the pretty pictures and get some good old-fashioned wanderlust coursing through their veins.

The Summer Palace can date its origins back to the middle of the twelfth century although at that time it was simply the site of some minor palaces and temples taking advantage of the natural springs and lakes nearby for pleasing views. It wasn’t until the Qing dynasty and late into the eighteenth century that serious expansion of the lakes to improve water supply to the city took place and the transformation of the area into a collection of imperial gardens, palaces, and temples as the Summer Palace was completed. The design of the palace grounds was grounded in Chinese mythology with dragons and mountains represented, but maintenance of the complex was high and it soon fell into disrepair.

In the latter half of the nineteenth century French and British forces looted the palace during the Second Opium War. The nearby Old Summer Palace was burned down at this time on the orders of Lord Elgin (son of the other Lord Elgin, famous (infamous if you’re Greek) for his appropriation of the Elgin Marbles for the British government) in retaliation for the Chinese torturing and murdering European and Indian prisoners. The twentieth century saw the Boxer Rebellion cause serious damage to the palace (although it was restored soon after) and, after the Last Emperor (you might have seen him in the movie of the same name) abdicated, the Summer Palace became first private property and then a public park. For a short period after the Second World War the Summer Palace housed the Central Party School for the Communist Party.

The history lesson is over.

We arrived on the eastern side of the Summer Palace and our visit of a few hours was only enough to take in a very small section of the area. You could easily spend over half a day here if you were staying in Beijing. We started off with a visit to the Renshoudian. Also known as the Hall of Benevolence and Longevity this was a collection of buildings – temple, palace, halls with ancient artifacts – around a courtyard garden area filled with bronze sculptures and large rocks called Taihu Stones.

The Taihu Stones and their distinctive shapes are formed by the action of pebbles constantly rubbing on larger rocks through rushing water action creating holes in the larger structure, and were considered lucky. Many were brought to the Summer Palace at great expense.

A prominent bronze sculpture caught many of the tourists’ attentions. This was a Qilin. Often translated as “unicorn” the Qilin clearly isn’t one because I’ve got the ability to count horns and can reach the number two with consummate ease.

You’d be hard-pressed to tour an ancient Chinese site and not see some motif or relief work representing dragons and we weren’t disappointed with some of the stone decorations on show in this first section of the Summer Palace that we visited.

From the Renshoudian we headed roughly southwest towards the lake that makes up most of the Summer Palace landscape. This took us through the Wenchang Pavilion, constructed like a huge city gate and with a nearby hall containing more artifacts.

We didn’t stop at the pavilion as Kunming Lake was our destination. It’s possible to hire boats for personal use, either pedal or electric-powered ones, but there are larger vessels that can take groups of tourists on circuits of the lake too and it was the latter option that our Princess Cruises-organised tour directed us to.

A quick apology here for the state of the photographs of Kunming Lake at the Summer Palace. Beijing is well-known for its smog, although our 2008 visit to China not long after the Olympics meant that pollution levels were pretty low during our three days there. However, with this being November and the sun setting reasonably early in the evening and there still being some smog, even if it wasn’t particularly noticeable to us at the time, a lot of the pictures taken before and during our boat ride around the lake ended up shooting into the low sun coming through smog and reflecting off water. The result is what you’ll see below for a lot of shots: washed-out colours heavily leaning towards the yellow and orange hues, and very little dark detail. As the saying goes, it is what it is.

We boarded a boat not far from Wenchang Pavilion on the east side of Kunming Lake. Looking to the north we could see a large buddhist temple. South there was a long bridge with numerous arches, and we would soon be sailing past both of them.

Our pleasant, gentle circuit of the shallow, artificial lake took place in an anti-clockwise direction so the first sight we passed was the towering complex on the northern shore. This was Foxiang Ge (Tower of Buddhist Incense, or Tower of the Fragrance of the Buddha). This building was one of those burned down by Anglo-French forces but later rebuilt and presently comprises three, eight-sided storeys on a twenty-metre-deep stone base. The temple houses a statue of the thousand-handed Guanshiyin Buddha.

West of the buddhist temple was a very unusual sight. This was the Marble Boat (also known as the Boat of Purity and Ease). Serving as a tea house with fabulous views over Kunming Lake now, this was originally a wooden structure on a stone base but like much in the area was destroyed by arson during the Second Opium War. Its reconstruction took place under the instruction of Empress Dowager Cixi and was likely through funds originally earmarked for rebuilding the navy. Despite its appearance and name, the Marble Boat is still made from wood but is now painted convincingly to resemble stone. It incorporates clever drainage systems that funnel rainwater through hollow columns.

The lake with three islands is important symbology in China and as we continued our scenic boat ride around the lake we saw numerous bridges connecting those islands. Interestingly, each bridge was very different in design. Of the smaller bridges that we saw the one that stood out most was Yudai, known as the Jade Belt Bridge. Made from marble, its shape is designed to resemble the simple bridges of the southern Chinese countryside but its unusually high clearance was a deliberate feature to allow the Qianlong Emperor to pass under it on his dragon boat.

The largest of the bridges on Kunming Lake is visible from pretty much any point along the lake’s shoreline. Shiqi Kong Qiao gets its name from its design, the literal translation being Seventeen-Arch Bridge. The bridge is one hundred and fifty metres long, making it the longest bridge in any Chinese imperial garden, and it connects the mainland to Nanhu Island. The railings on the bridge incorporate five hundred stone lions in different poses. A variety of halls, temples, and towers dotted the small island, each filling a scenic location on the landmass in which to enjoy the views of the Summer Palace in every direction, and as we gently motored past Nanhu on its north side we passed Hanxu Hall which directly faces the Buddhist tower on the shore of the lake.

Stepping ashore we had time to see one more interesting item before departing. The Kunlun Stone Tablet is inscribed with a poem written by the Qianlong Emperor and describes how the shores of the lakes changed during his years of coming to the Summer Palace and especially enjoying his time on and around Kunming Lake.

And that brought our time visiting the Summer Palace in Beijing to a close with just a short wait outside the main entrance while we waited for our bus to find us. It was a short visit of only a couple of hours that really barely scratched the surface of what there is to see at this tourist spot. If I were returning now then I’d like to have spent more time in the buildings looking at the artifacts on display and a look inside the imposing Buddhist temple would be a must too, but as a taster of what to see and as part of a combination of historical trips in one day in the pre-cruise package hosted by Princess Cruises then this was a fantastic trip.

We would have just one more day in Beijing before our cruise on Diamond Princess but it would be a very full one indeed.

As it was November it was cold enough to give everything a sheen of ice so we were quite careful on our first evening there but had a reasonable walk along part of the Icelandic shoreline before heading inland. We had no plans to visit anything at that time, just take in the lay of the land, make a note of anything interesting, and grab some shots of the varied architecture.

Water featured heavily in the town with rivers, a lake, and a reservoir in addition to the Atlantic coast.

We noticed a few pieces of art and sculpture and there was obviously some sort of street art scene going on in the area too.

On the final day we would discover Hellisgerdi Park and its abundance of artwork.

By the ocean’s edge I was quite taken with a piece of brutal architecture but I couldn’t work out what its function was.

A processed image of something that may have been art or may have been functional or may have been both.

A very quick recap in case you can’t be bothered to read about the trip so far: when we booked this cruise with Princess (fairly close to cruise date) it was nearly five years after our first and only other cruise leaving us in the position of having to learn what it is to travel by cruise ship all over again. We’d decided very early on that we’d be booking excursions as much as possible because we’re generally nosey people with a keen interest in history and culture but for this very first port stop in the very first foreign country we’d visited since our honeymoon half a decade earlier nothing jumped out at us. Thus it was that our first visit of a few hours to Norway would be on foot and with no firm plan at all. In later years we would be far more disciplined in researching just what we might be able to do on our own if the need arose but with us being travelling noobs all over again we probably didn’t make the most of our day ashore. There will always be another time.

Princess provided free shuttle buses to allow those of us not on organised excursions to get from Crown Princess into the city. We were dropped off by the city’s octagonal lake, Lille Lungegårdsvannet, made a note of when the buses would be returning to the ship, tutted mildly at the still overcast and lightly spitting weather conditions, and mostly followed the direction of more seasoned travellers also departing the vehicle to do their own thing.

Heading roughly west we crossed over a road and passed through Julemarked Byparken, a small public park with a few sculptures and statues as well as a prominent pavilion. Just beyond that was a modern, pedestrianised area lined with various upmarket stores and punctuated by stone sculptures and water features. The main square of Bergen, Torgallmenningen, was just off this area and it was through this that we next walked.

At the northern end of Torgallmenningen was the Sailor’s Monument, a large sculpture honouring sailors from different eras of Norway’s past.

Continuing on a straight line past the monument to sailors we approached Bergen’s fish market area which is unsurprisingly right by the waterfront area. My wife loves the smell of fresh fish, she loves seafood; I like fish, I can’t stand seafood, and the smell of fresh fish turns my stomach. We were never going to really stop at the fish market area because it’s not like you can buy some fish and take it back aboard the cruise ship to keep for a week until you’re home. Instead, we wandered past it and hugged the road along where the boats were docked, including a small Viking vessel.

The area of Bergen just beyond the fish market and opposite the water was called Bryggen and it’s a UNESCO World Cultural Site. Bryggen was the area in which Bergen was first founded in the eleventh century before expansion but its look and feel date to the middle of the fourteenth century onwards when this part of the city became a trading post for the Hanseatic League. What are now generally shops and locations for local craftspeople to work in were formerly warehouses and merchant houses for the League. The colourful wooden buildings still bear the signs of their previous lives and the narrow alleys and open spaces within the buildings, either lined with wooden boardwalks or cobbles, made for a lovely little wander.

We’re the sort of people who like to spend money in the places we’re travelling, not just spend it getting to and from them, so we were pleased to find a local jewellery workshop in this part of Bergen and my wife bought a hefty, silver ring. My wife tried the ring on, said it was lovely, acknowledged that she understood the stone wasn’t a diamond (for the price we were paying: well, duh!), said she’d love it, and the man there smiled and said he’d polish the piece of jewellery for her. This triggered a loud and indignant “Well, you didn’t offer to polish mine!” from an American woman who’d just bought something too. I guess we just bring out the best in people.

Our no-plan-just-wander tour of Bergen saw us next heading eastwards in a loop to get back roughly to where we’d been dropped off. We weren’t short for time but we were definitely still in a finding-our-feet phase of travelling. These days we would plan things a lot more, have set ideas where we’d want to be, make sure to spend as much time in port as possible, but back then we wanted to be certain that we’d be safely aboard ship in plenty of time.

Our walking route took us past some fairly uninteresting buildings and streets until we came out on Vetrlidsallmeningen where we were greeted by the sight of a long queue of – we assume – passengers from our ship waiting to board the Fløibanen funicular train to the top of the hill overlooking Bergen. On a clear day I imagine the sight is something worth seeing but with the cloud still partially obscuring the hilltop (although the light rain had ceased by this time) we were very glad that we hadn’t paid to do this on our own or as an excursion offered by the cruise line.

We cut through the line of people waiting to board the funicular and found ourselves in another old part of the city of Bergen. Wooden buildings and cobbled streets dominated, although there was more of an overall whiteness to the buildings rather than the varied colours of the buildings that had belonged to the Hanseatic League. This was Lille Øvregaten in the district of Vågsbunnen and it was one of the oldest parts of Bergen. In medieval times this was where you could find inns, goldsmiths, tailors, and booksellers, and it was also the home of cobblers until they found their own street in the fourteenth century.

Korskirken (or the Holy Cross Church) caught our eyes, its stone structure most likely being designed to do precisely that amongst all the wooden buildings that surrounded it. Its name comes not from its shape (although it is cruciform) but because it once housed relics of the True Cross (the somewhat unlikely alleged remnants of the cross on which Jesus was crucified) although these were stolen by Denmark who’d skipped the bit about not doing that in the commandments. The church was damaged in fires in 1198, 1248, 1413, 1582, 1623, 1640, and 1702 so not the greatest of track records when all’s said and done.

We continued heading roughly east and southeast through various streets in Bergen on our walk back towards the lake near where we’d been first dropped. There was a little bit of street art to be seen but nothing terribly good with the majority of work falling firmly in that unthinking graffiti category instead. One interesting moment was stumbling upon a group being filmed for something; it involved holding up cards with words on them then everyone waving Danish flags. Your guess is as good as mine.

Not far from the lake we made a stop at a bar with outdoor seating (as the weather was quite pleasant now) just so we could say that we’d had a Norwegian beer in Norway. Well, we can say that we’ve done it but it wasn’t a particularly nice experience in Bergen because social smoking was a big thing there. In later years (travelling in Europe in particular) we’d run into this problem with smoking in public a lot. Is it asking too much for smokers to simply lower themselves into a Pit of Shame whenever they want to light up? Anyway, we drank up quickly and decided to have one last short wander around before making our way back to the shuttle bus.

We made a quick circuit of Lille Lungegårdsvannet. Interesting pieces of art in the vicinity included Dansk Pige (or Danish Girl) by Gerhard Henning, and the fabulous, abstract, steel sculpture by Knut Steen to memorialise King Olaf Kyrre.

We had a quick look at the modern shops along the pedestrianised area we’d walked through earlier in the day but there was nothing to grab our attention.

With the weather being a little more favourable I took a couple of minutes to grab some additional photos around Julemarked Byparken once more. As public parks go it’s a pretty small one. To the north of the centrally-located pavilion was a statue to Edvard Grieg which we’d noticed earlier but on this second pass through we spotted an abstract piece of work that was more interesting to look at. This was a sculpture to another Norwegian composer, albeit a far less familiar one I’ll warrant, Harald Sæverud.

We decided to call it a day in Bergen at this point so walked through the Festplassen, the open air area beside the lake which often hosts circuses, amusement parks, festivals, and a regular pre-Christmas candle party. Best not to think too much about what the average Norwegian does at a candle party.

That concluded our walk around Bergen. We didn’t have long to wait until the shuttle bus returned us to Crown Princess. We had successfully negotiated our first day ashore on a cruise in five years and had the luxury of knowing that everywhere else we’d stop in Norway would include an organised tour meaning the chances of us getting left behind in any port were practically none.

The park was opened in 1983, created artificially as a requirement on the back of extensive mining in the area that had been undertaken over the previous decade. The lake was filled with clean water and nearly half a million plants and trees were put in.

After meeting up by the lake with our friends and one of their friends we all set off along one of the trails in the area. We picked the sculpture trail as it was one of the shorter ones and we were mindful of still a long drive back home to follow on. The trail through the country park was nice, taking us up some reasonably easy-to-climb hills and granting us views of the Rother Valley from their heights. Along the way, as the name implies, we happened upon the sculptures, these being wooden posts with various carvings in their faces.

As the photos from along the sculpture trail show, the landscapes were lovely, bringing to mind imagery of a Windows XP desktop background.

As befits a place named the Lake District we headed directly for a lake in order to get out and take a look around. Blue sky, blue water, and vibrant green grass made for some lovely views and opportunities to take plenty of photos as we stretched our legs.

Once we’d had our fill of fresh air and bright colours, and once I’d sated my need to take pictures of the landscape, we jumped back in the car and headed out of the lakeside area towards Grasmere where my wife remembered she’d bought gingerbread as a youngster and wanted to do so again. The weather changed significantly between our walk along the water and our arrival in the village with us being forced to run for cover between buildings but our quest for the gingerbread was a successful one.

There was also a church in the park although we never did find out what its name was or the religion to which it was bound (although Lutheran would be my guess).

There wasn’t a huge amount to see as the ruins of Threave Castle itself are quite small although its location and views were pretty good even under not the prettiest of skies.

The main thing for us, though, was that Threave Castle was on an island. We’d guessed there would be a bridge to it but we soon discovered it could only be reached by boat. As a fun element to the visit the boatman would only come to ferry you across when you rang a bell so we duly did that before our trip to the castle’s keep. After we’d returned to the mainland and explored the garden areas for a bit we passed the pontoon to get across to the island again and saw a group of people standing there, waiting, looking across the water to the boatman who was simply looking back. They hadn’t realised the bell needed ringing. Luckily for them my wife walked down, struck the bell, and we wandered off as we heard the boat finally start up and head towards the sheepish-looking visitors.

Our first stop was the most obvious landmark in Reykjavík, the Lutheran church Hallgrímskirkja. As we exited the impressive building we happened upon a wedding photo shoot taking place using the church as a backdrop. I made sure to take a few shots of the action as well.

After the church visit we walked the short distance down to the Reykjavík shoreline which provided some lovely views across the water to mountains around the Icelandic coast.

One of the features of the shoreline was the presence of a beautiful, stainless steel sculpture called The Sun Voyager. There were quite a few people hovering around, braving the bracing temperatures to take a photo or two and, unsurprisingly, I did the same. I also took a photo of an Icelandic man in front of the piece of art who drove up, hopped out of his car, and asked if I would. I’m nice like that.

Further along the water’s edge was the Harpa Concert Hall, an interesting piece of architecture that reminded me a little of the sand crawlers in Star Wars. We didn’t go in the building because there was a music festival taking place in Iceland in the week we were visiting and entrance was for ticket holders only.

We wandered around a little bit more after that taking more photos of Reykjavík’s streets and buildings as well as some of its street art while there was still light enough to do so before hunkering down in a few bars to grab some food and drink. Expensive, as you probably could guess with it being Iceland, but what we had was very good.

The bus from alongside Crown Princess took us initially up to Loen, a small village which these days includes a skylift as a popular tourist attraction for those who don’t want to stray too far from where the cruise ships dock. Travelling eastwards from there we drove along the Loelva, the river that connects the Nordfjorden to Lovatnet, a glacier-fed lake, and that would be the first stop on this organised trip.

Our cruise excursion would involve three parts: the first would be a boat trip on the Lovatnet with a snack at the end of that; this would be followed by a visit to a nearby glacier; the day’s activities would conclude with a bus ride back and a stop at a spot with traditional Norwegian buildings. Our boat hadn’t arrived at the lake when we arrived, though, so we had ten or more minutes to stand around and admire the gorgeous scenery in this part of the world.

With the sound of our boat approaching, all of the other passengers on this excursion started to wander back from where they’d been taking a look around. This whole taking a trip abroad thing was still pretty virgin territory for us at the time (there’d been such a long period between our first cruise and this one that we’d effectively reset the clock on it) so we’d stayed close to the bulk of fellow tourists during the wait, not wanting to be those people who stroll off and get lost or cause delays, and even sidled to where we knew the boat would have to stop in order to ensure we couldn’t possibly miss it.

We could see that the boat had seating inside and on top, and with me being the sort of person who likes to take photos of everything (it’s true) I mentioned to my wife that I’d like to head up top for uninterrupted views of the landscape. However, a couple of things scuppered this plan: firstly, there are a lot of selfish people in the world and, without wanting to dip my toes into the waters of stereotyping but being unable to avoid it, the older and whiter and richer American cruising demographic seems to have more than its fair share of them; secondly, I’m introverted (all the time) and polite (when I’m sober). This combination of factors saw our prime position near where the boat was about to tie up get overrun by jostling, careless, more experienced arseholes, and the pair of us shoved away to the back of the queue. We ended up sitting inside.

As it turned out, sitting inside the boat proved to be a positive thing. We could see the people who’d rushed forward and grabbed the outside seating were suffering quite badly with cold, lake spray, and the edge to the temperature in the exposed environment (it wasn’t very windy at all but it wasn’t warm by any means either) was forcing everyone to wrap up as much as possible and bury hands in pockets. It didn’t seem like the best place to take some photographs after all.

Our location in the boat put us close to the water level of the lake and with a window that could be slid open I was able to get some lovely shots of the view ahead and to the starboard side of the vessel.

Our boat trip took around forty minutes and as is the way with excursions we had not only the views to take in but also a running commentary to listen to. This covered geological and historical aspects of the location, and in this particular lake’s case those two aspects were firmly linked. Lovatnet is a glacier-fed lake (actually fed by two glaciers, one of which we’d be visiting next) which accounts for the turquoise colouring, and the surrounding mountainscapes have been prone to landslides in the past.

In 1905 a rockfall triggered tsunamis over forty metres high to travel along the length of Lovatnet. Two villages along the southern shore – Bødal and Nesdal – were hit with the loss of sixty houses, over seventy boats, hundreds of animals, a bridge, and half the population (over sixty deaths). One boat ended up being found three hundred metres inland. A monument was built to honour the dead.

Geologists concluded that such an event was unlikely to happen again so the villages were rebuilt and repopulated but in 1936 a far larger landslide occurred. The tsunamis this time reached a height of over seventy metres, washing away sixteen farms, destroying a hundred houses and other buildings, bridges, a power station, and all the boats. The boat that had previously been deposited three hundred metres inland was moved by the tsunami another one hundred and fifty metres. The 1905 monument was also destroyed, seventy four people lost their lives this time around, and the area was subsequently abandoned.

Our Lovatnet lake boat trip terminated at the southeastern end where a restaurant, Kjenndalstova, was located. This was an opportunity for those who needed to use the restrooms to do so and for everyone to enjoy some waffles. The restaurant itself offers a lot more than just waffles, including trout from the lake, and it’s possible to hire boats to head out and do your own fishing if that’s the sort of thing that floats your boat.

After our snack stop we made our way outside to wait for the bus to arrive and take us on to the next part of the day’s excursion. From Kjenndalstova it’s possible to look across Lovatnet lake and see a pretty impressive waterfall, Ramnefjellsfossen. While its height isn’t known exactly it’s currently considered to be the eleventh highest waterfall in the world.

Time then for the second part of our excursion and the main reason we’d picked this trip, but first an apology.

If you’ve read about our hike in Geiranger from the day before then you’ll already know this and I can only apologise even further for repeating myself. Then again, the likelihood of you having read about our hike in Geiranger from the day before is microscopic because people don’t use the web the way they used to so I feel fully justified in saying this again. Just prior to taking this Norwegian fjords cruise I’d made an impulse buy on the web for some cheap, graduated, neutral density filters as I thought they’d be ideal for getting properly-exposed photos of dark mountains against bright skies. A great theory flawed by not factoring in jagged mountain shapes and choosing the cheapest of cheap options from eBay. The result was dreadfully-exposed pictures with mountains half-under and half-over-exposed, and magenta tones flooding the highlights and shadows. It was also impossible to mount the filter on the lens without leaving a thumbprint somewhere so problems that already existed with a dirty sensor had extra imperfections added to the mix. Anyway, all this is to say that I’m sorry that the photos aren’t better here; I’ve cleaned them up as best I could in limited time and I’ve tried to desaturate the wrong colouring but to do a proper job would take months and the effort’s not worth the result. I’ll just have to go back and take better shots some other day.

Kjenndal Glacier – our destination – is an arm of Jostedal Glacier, which just happens to be the largest glacier in continental Europe. It was also the first glacier we’d ever seen (which, considering this was only our second trip abroad and the first had been to Asia, shouldn’t be that big a surprise). We’ve seen a few more glaciers since then.

There’s not a lot to say about Kjenndalsbreen (its Norwegian name) that you probably can’t guess or that you won’t get told if you see almost any other glacier in the world. The ice is retreating because the world is warming up so if you want to experience glaciers at their most impressive then you need to do it sooner rather than later. Kjenndal’s glacier is actually maintained by snowfall rather than low temperature but that means that any change in climate that alters snow conditions could affect this glacier more quickly than a gradual heat rise over time.

From the point where the bus dropped us off to where we allowed to walk to (we couldn’t get too close to the glacier because the risk of rockfall in the area was too great and the Norwegian authorities sensibly want to keep people a reasonable distance away from natural wonders that are susceptible to tourism damage) was little more than five minutes’ walk and our time in total at this picturesque spot was about forty minutes. This gave us plenty of time to take plenty of photos of the Kjenndal Glacier and the nearby waterfalls cascading over the egdes of the mountains but photography was tricky because the sun was behind the glacier for the most part. Dark rock in the foreground, blue-white ice on the peak, and sunshine diffused through hazy cloud behind was quite a challenge to work with and if you’re keen on taking some great pictures in this part of Norway then take some time to consider where the sunlight’s coming from at the time of day you’re visiting.

You can really get a sense of the difficulty in taking pictures in this video near Kjenndalsbreen, and you’ll also be able to get a sense for how the wind was being funnelled down the canyon leading to the foot of the glacier.

The walk back to the bus took us along a glacial stream. As has already been mentioned, Lovatnet lake is fed by two main glaciers; Jostedal (and its arm here at Kjenndal) being one of them.

While the Ramnefjellsfossen waterfall on Lovatnet had been remarkable because of its height I found the waterfall thundering off the northern face of the rocks near Kjenndal Glacier far more impressive.

With everyone back at the bus on time we then left Kjenndal Glacier behind and started on our return towards Olden where Crown Princess was waiting for us. We wouldn’t be taking the boat along Lovatnet for this as we’d be stopping in a small village along the way and that will be covered in the next post in this cruise travelogue series.

We’d seen that it was possible to stay in houses in the village but the hotel costs seemed high before visiting Wales. After seeing just how lovely Portmeirion was, though, we did say that if we went back then we’d probably have to book a room even if only for a night.

The architecture of Portmeirion village is lovely but it’s the colours of the buildings that really stand out. We didn’t have the greatest weather but the greens of the surrounding trees and woodland were still vibrant and contrasted wonderfully against the primary paint colours all around.

From the village itself we headed down to the beach that could be glimpsed through the trees at several vantage points through Portmeirion. A stone boat and other buildings in keeping with the architecture of the main tourist attraction were present as well as sweeping views across flat sand. It was easy to picture Patrick McGoohan being chased by and captured by one of The Prisoner‘s Rovers.

In addition to the main village and beach there was a pleasant woodland area with lake and Japanese-style bridges and seating areas as well as numerous wooden carvings of animal life.

A Strange Coincidence

Portmeirion was absolutely lovely and on a bright, sunny day would probably have been even more so. A couple of years after we visited the village I saw someone posting photos of Portmeirion on a forum and made a comment that we’d visited the place as well. As we got talking it turned out we’d visited on the same day and after a bit of sleuthing on both our parts we discovered I’d taken a photo of her and her husband on one side of the village square while she had taken a photo of me and my wife opposite them at the same time. A small, weird world.