Cornwall Part 1
What a week! It’s been a total whirlwind but we needed this break from normality to do something fun, to see somewhere new and to eat all the best food. I’m breaking up our week in Cornwall in to two blog posts, because we all know I love to take a lot of photos!
Last Monday we left our home in Cumbria at midnight, and travelled all the way down to the very tail end of England to St Ives. It took us over 8 hours, with 2 stops and an hour stuck on the motorway because of an accident. I do not recommend attempting to drive through the night without any sleep that day, it was torture, my eyes were burning so Josh had to drive most the way.
When we arrived in St Ives the sun was shining, it was just the most beautiful morning. We walked from our campsite in to town along the coastal path where we spotted our first seal. The town itself was heaving, there were people everywhere and all cafe’s/pubs/restaurants were full. We managed to get some breakfast at a little takeaway called MOR, then made our way back to the campsite to set our tent up. We spent the rest of the afternoon on Porthkidney beach but we didn’t rate it, it was very big and spacious but so windy.. perhaps it was just a bad day for this particular beach.
The Devils Frying Pan
Lizard Point
Coastal path from Cadgwith to Lizard Point
On Tuesday we walked from Cadgwith to Lizard Point. It was a long walk but fairly quiet, with some pretty spectacular views. The best part for me was reaching Lizard Point and ordering scampi & chips from Polpeor Cafe, the most southernly cafe in Britain and finishing it off with one of their homemade donuts topped with jam and cream. It was that good we ended up having food here again later in the week and of course I ordered the same two meals. If it’s a good day, it’s great to sit outside and watch the seals in the sea below.
Pedn Vounder
Pedn Vounder Beach
I had read a number of blog posts on this beach, so it was on the top of my list of beaches to see in Cornwall. It was stunning and my photos don’t do it much justice. The Cornish Life and Meet Me by the Sea have some great photographs which of course tempted me to this beach in the first place. We spent all day Wednesday and all day Thursday here, soaking up the sun, swimming, trying to balance on the paddle board and even made some friends on one of those days. Erik got to make lots of doggy friends too, and met another German Pointer from Bath who was a similar age.
Tintagel Castle
On Friday we made the long journey up to Tintagel. I must admit, we were both a little disappointed when we got to Tintagel Castle and paid the £32 entry fee to find that there actually wasn’t much of a ‘castle’ to be seen. Don’t get me wrong, the views were stunning but for £32 we kind of felt a little cheated. You can still visit Tintagel and see the views without having to pay to enter the castle site which I’d recommend instead.
Padstow
On our way back down from Tintagel we decided to stop at Padstow. Padstow has to be my favourite town in Cornwall that we visited. It was lovely and small, plenty of quaint shops, pubs, cafes, restaurants etc. but a much nicer vibe than St Ives. We actually really wanted to go to Rick Steins fish and chip shop but just weren’t fancying it, so instead we got a bite to eat at Cafe Rojano. We didn’t order much, because we were expecting to eat when we got back to the campsite but had we known it was going to be so good we would have gone all in. We went for the crispy baby squid, diavola pizza and the Rojano chips. Each dish was fantastic and all the other dishes we drooled over coming out the kitchen looked insane also. For pudding Josh had the affagato and I had went for another prosecco. We ended the evening in Newquay at Fistral Beach where we met Josh’s brother and his friends and watched the sun disappear behind the sea.