"Portmeirion, in North Wales, is a resort, where no one has ever lived. A self-taught Welsh architect named Sir Clough Williams-Ellis built it out of architectural salvage between the 1920s and 1970s, loosely based on his memories of trips to Portofino. Including a pagoda-shaped Chinoiserie gazebo, some Gothic obelisks, eucalyptus groves, a crenellated castle, a Mediterranean bell tower, a Jacobean town hall, and an Art Deco cylindrical watchtower. He kept improving Portmeirion until his death in 1978, age 94. It faces an estuary where at low tide one can walk across the sands and look out to sea. At high tide, the sea is lapping onto the shores. Every building in the village is either a shop, restaurant, hotel or self-catering accomodation. The village is booked out at high season, with numerous wedding receptions at the weekends. Very popular amongst the English and Welsh holidaymakers. Many who return to the same abode season after season. Hundreds of tourists visit every day, walking around the ornamental gardens, cobblestone paths, and shopping, eating ice-creams, or walking along the woodland and coastal paths, amongst a colourful assortment of hydrangea, rhododendrons, tree ferns and redwoods. The resort boasts two high class hotels, a la carte menus, a swimming pool, a lifesize concrete boat, topiary, pools and wishing wells. The creator describes the resort as ""a home for fallen buildings,"" and its ragged skyline and playful narrow passageways which were meant to provide ""more fun for more people."" It does just that.///Ornamental central gardens of Portmeirion village. Flanked by Dome Gallery, Gothic tower, Renaissance collonades, with lwans, flowerbeds, topiary, pools and fountains."
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