Wales - day 2

After a traditional full breakfast it was time to set off back up the coast, albeit at a more leisurely pace than yesterday. Our first stop was Barmouth. I have to admit it's a place that has been the butt of a family joke for close to 40 years. Holidaying with my parents in the late 60s, we had made Dolgellau our base of operations for a week touring the hotspots of North West Wales. Trouble was, in those days, everything closed down at 6pm. Every night for a week, following the evening meal, we'd sit morosely in the guest house lounge and ask the question: "where shall we go this evening, then?" And every night for a week, the answer was: Barmouth. There simply wasn't anywhere else with anything happening.

It's a fairly interesting front as seaside towns go, made even more interesting by this clever dolphin fountain. It comes equipped with a wind sensor, so when the air speed rises above a preset point the fountain shuts off to avoid splashing the passersby. Ain't technology wonderful?

As we wandered around the town staring into the closed shop windows (40 years on and still, to a large extent, Wales is closed on a Sunday) we came across another example of shop sign shenanigans.

Fortunately (this time) the "Arousal" cafe was also closed, so as that underlined the slimness of the chances of any further arousal in Barmouth we returned to the car and headed for Portmeirion.

Internet resources describing the Italianate folly village are rife, so I won't waste your time with a potted précis here. Look it up for yourselves. This was my third or fourth visit and in the intervening 20 or so years the only real change I could detect was a distinct lack of any Prisoner memorabilia. Maybe we simply didn't take the right turning, but it certainly wasn't as prolific as on my last visit, when you couldn't turn round without tripping over a penny-farthing.

Maybe the sad but simple explanation is that the Prisoner has a greatly reduced profile compared with twenty years ago, and perhaps the village felt it was faintly ridiculous to keep trading on the fading cachet of a 40-year-old TV series, no matter how iconic.

After Portmeirion we drove to Porthmadog where we were staying. Once again after the childhood weeks spent on Black Rock Sands, I hadn't been back for many years. The most obvious change was to the name of the famous narrow-gauge railway. No longer the Blaenau Ffestiniog railway but now the Rheilffordd Ffestiniog Railway and - an even more obvious mark of the passage of time - it has its own website. Last time I visited the train only ran as far as Dduallt, and the enthusiasts' dream of reopening the line all the way to Blaenau Ffestiniog was just that: a dream. According to Wikipedia that dream was finally realised in 1982 - ironically not that long after my last visit - but unfortunately as the line is only open for a couple of days a week at this time of year, we were unable to experience it.

After a brief walk around Porthmadog, another stop to pump up the left rear tyre, which had developed a slow leak before leaving home, and a swift pint, we checked in to our residence for the night - the Tudor Lodge - and asked the proprietor for details of preferred local eateries. Sadly the most highly recommended was still closed, but we were delighted to hear of a very good Indian only a few minutes walk away, so we set off for A Passage to India where we enjoyed an excellent curry before retiring to our (much more comfortable) beds.