As confirmed fans of “The Prisoner”, a visit to Portmeirion was a must for this holiday. It wasn’t cheap but we felt it would be worth while.
Practically our first stop on arrival was the “Prisoner Shop” located in Number 6’s house where we bought a number of items of merchandise including two number badges. A small ‘6’ for Sophia and a realistically sized ‘2’ for Dad.
Dad wore his badge for the rest of the day – after all, where else would he ever be able to wear it – but didn’t observe anyone else doing the same. It appears that there may be people who go to Portmeirion without being Prisoner fans (strange!).
The cottage contained a Portmeirion Guide Book so we were able to avoid buying one. We therefore started by having a good look round the centre of the village aided by this guide.
We weren’t taken by the cafe menu (we had forgotten about Cafe 6 near the entrance) so we purchased some “street food” which was pleasant and reasonably priced but did need to be eaten under the slight drizzle.
Another item we purchased was a walking guide to the village locations used in the TV series so after lunch we followed that and read about how the various sites in Portmeirion were used to represent location in “The Village”.
It appeared that we had just missed the annual Prisoner convention “Portmeiricon” which was due to start on Friday evening and indeed seeing our interest in the show several of the staff asked whether we had come for the convention. Various Prison specific items such as the special direction signs seen in the series were being put out in preparation.
The Prisoner guide eventually led us all the way along the coast path to the lighthouse and from here we followed one of the woodland walks back to the centre.
