Portmeirion 28/6/2013**

 

Estuary from Portmeirion, early morning   Portmeirion beach   Portmeirion centre

Staying at this resort gave us a chance to cover a little more of the coast within its grounds.  The village is the creation of an architect in the 1930s who wished to show how a tourist development could be compatible with a natural environment.  Views of the small village are certainly spectacular and plenty of room is left for nature, with wild plants and birds in plenty.  We saw both robins and pigeons enter cafés to grab crumbs, so obviously they were tolerated.  The area was once a large country estate and the damp woodland behind the coast has much rhododendron and other more exotic trees, tree-ferns and other plants, some of which are now naturalised, such as lesser knotweed, London-pride, Chilean iris and Iris versicolor.  The coast cliffs have the usual limited acid-soil vegetation and descend to bare sandy beaches, too far up the estuary for anything more than cockle-shells, and quickly covered by the tide when it rises.  We saw our only clump of sea-lavender so far, however, in a saltmarsh area behind one of the beaches.  The facilities here for residents are very good but of course the bottom line is that this is nothing more than an artificial theme-park.   Portmeirion from the shore

Lesser knotweed   Chilean iris   Iris versicolor