Cornwall

It is suddenly summer, and we decided to have a trip away, in Cornwall. We drove down as far as Bristol in the evening after grandparental duties, so that the first proper day of the trip was fun. We had a look around Truro which is a pleasant town, if not particularly distinguished. The cathedral is Victorian in perpendicular Gothic style, again, pleasant without being special.

Then we went to Trelissick. The National Trust has started to open the house but it's the gardens and the site which are worth seeing. The gardens have lots of subtropical plants such as tree ferns, and they have winding shady paths which open onto spectacular vistas over Falmouth Roads. 

Trelissick gardens

We pottered around them for ages, and really enjoyed the orchard, which had an old cider press and was full of unusual apple varieties with weird and wonderful names, such as the variety Pigs Snout. It isn't the most appealing name for something one plans to eat, although I think it is a cider apple.

We had dinner at the hotel, because we were quite tired and didn’t want to go out again. We didn’t expect the food to be anything great, and it wasn’t, but that was as expected. What was annoying was the service - it was shockingly slow, even though they clearly had us down as trouble makers, and were doing their best to get us out. We got a tenner off the bill, but would far rather have had a swifter meal.

The next morning, at breakfast, it seemed beyond the staff to replenish supplies of croissants, supply boiling water for tea, or pots to make it in, or clear tables. Luckily we had opted for a continental breakfast. This was a good decision, as the English breakfasts took forever, but I was beginning to feel really stressed, as Phil spent too much time in the US to tolerate slow service, and isn't inhibited by the usual English terror of causing a fuss and complaining. I still am. I was itching to take over and organise the useless crew, although to be fair, the physical arrangements of seating, the kitchens, and the buffet were working against the staff. So I was beginning to feel that a holiday punctuated by regular rows with the serving staff was not going to be fun. But, apart from that one hotel near Truro, the service was fine and we had some really excellent meals.

After breakfast, we went to the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth. This is the Cornwall branch. It's pretty newly built and is just brilliant. We particularly wanted to see the exhibition on Viking seafaring, because we went to a talk in Nottingham by the curator of this particular exhibition. He is the Curator of Coins at the British Museum; he was talking about assessing treasure trove, and it was a very interesting talk. He mentioned the exhibition and we thought it sounded good, and so it was – really lively and informative.  But there was much else in the museum that was completely fascinating, and we were in there for ages. 

The Royal Fleet Auxiliary Mounts Bay

One nice touch – there’s a lookout tower to see right across the harbour, with an useful crib sheet to help one spot interesting vessels. There is HMS Tyne, a fisheries protection vessel and a Royal Fleet Auxiliary landing and transport vessel; there’s the Ernest Shackleton, a scientific survey vessel; there’s all the little ferries crisscrossing the river, and there are some J class racing yachts, with vertiginously tall masts. We saw one sailing, with about eight men out on trapezes balancing her up.

At last, we were museumed out, and had a very late lunch at Rick Stein’s restaurant. What we had was good, but I was quite disappointed at the choice of fish. If you are eating in a posh fish restaurant you'd expect a wider range of fish on offer than cod, mussels and crab. I mean, I personally can’t stand skate, but it was on the menu elsewhere. And we also had bream, hake, mackerel, sardines and squid at other meals.

The following day we went back into Falmouth and took the ferry across to St Mawes, and then a second, smaller ferry to Place. It was a morning of heavy sea fret, so that the lighthouse fog horn was sounding, but we still really enjoyed the boat trips. 

The Lighthouse. The small white building is the former store
for paraffin, to keep the light burning. 

Falmouth is one of the largest natural deep water harbours in the world (if you look on the internet there’s some agreement, but also there’s obviously quite a bit of disagreement about  how “size” is measured when it involves a sea inlet). The ferry trip across takes about twenty minutes, and was a bit splashy, which made it all quite exciting.  By the time we got to Place, it was brightening up, and we set off for a circular walk, the second half of which was on the South West Coastal path, and took us past the lighthouse, still honking away,  and a thirteenth century church. It was thoroughly good, with profusions of wild flowers and larks singing.

At the end of the walk, we got the ferry back to St Mawes, and watched the Falmouth Diving Club getting volunteers to go into the water in an old fashioned diving suit. It took ages to manoeuvre a volunteer into the suit, and the helmet was fixed in place with wingnuts. It wasn't for anyone who had even the slightest tendency to claustrophobia.

We spent a while looking at St Mawes Castle, 

which was built by Henry VIII as a state of the art artillery fort to protect the entrance to the port. There's a matching fort on the other side, and other sixteenth century fortifications. It's interesting because most of the Tudor stuff has survived. Of course it was the site of Victorian and World War Two artillery batteries, but they left the fort much as it was. We enjoyed seeing it more than we expected. There are some World War Two pillboxes left, and the Fisherman's Quay at Falmouth is huge, so I think it must have been enlarged for D Day. The Pickle landed here bringing the news of Trafalgar, but the main memorial is to the naval and commando forces involved in the St Nazaire raid - the raid which denied a dry dock to Tirpitz, so that it spent the rest of its war uselessly in a Norwegian fjord, until finally sunk by the RAF. 

WW2 pillbox

In fact we're enjoying Falmouth very much. Last time we came to Cornwall, we went to St Ives, and it was full of pretentious London yahs, who seemed happy to pay silly prices for very mediocre meals, and having given their children idiotic names like Orlando and India, felt that paying the poor kids any further attention was unnecessary. We didn't enjoy it. Although to be fair, we did see a sunfish. So Falmouth is delightful. Also we have had excellent food which always makes us happy.

For the next two nights We moved from Truro to Bodinnick, across the river from Fowey, and stayed at the Old Ferry Inn. It's great. 

 Polruan - the view from the Old Ferry Inn

The food is seriously good and imaginative, and it has fantastic views. Our bedroom is pretty low ceilinged though - it wouldn't do for a six footer. But it's fine for us.

A nice point is that both Falmouth and Fowey rivers are really busy. There are always boats moving about, and the ferries alone create a sense of purpose and interest. Not like most places, where the marinas are dead and alive, not a boat moving. You can sit and watch, while enjoying a drink. I had a pint of Rosie Pigg, which might be too much, as the stairs up and out of the pub were steep and irregular and presented something of a challenge afterwards. 

 

A traditional Cornish stile. It presented
problems to bipeds, so it would
certainly keep quadrupeds in their field. 

Because we are near the Eden Project, we decided we ought to go there. I don't think either of us had great expectations, but it was really remarkable, we’re so glad we went. The rain forest biodome was amazing. It's so huge you lose sight of the fact that actually you are in a massive greenhouse. 

Two of the birds introduced into the biodome to control
pests. There are lizards and another species of bird, too.

And the outside gardens are just wonderful, not just for beauty but also for education, such as the displays of plants used for dyeing or for medicines. The only slight disappointment was the Mediterranean biodome. There was a cafe in there, and the smell of the food drowned out the smell of the herbs, and spoiled the experience. But in general, it was great, much better than we had anticipated.

The we went for a walk down to the beach which was at the end of the gardens of  Menabilly, the house occupied by Daphne Du Maurier, with the boathouse that features in “Rebecca”. It was a lovely walk and a pretty cove, and I had a swim, which I enjoyed very much.

The following day we walked a route from Bodinnick via Pont to Polruan, where we got the ferry cross to Fowey, and then walked through Fowey to the ferry back to Bodinnick. It's a well known walk and is very beautiful, walking through woods which sometimes open on to superb views of the river. Fowey is another deep water natural harbour and has been important port since the thirteenth century. It was another D Day port -apparently there were so many landing craft in the river that you could walk across dry shod. Polruan has the remains of a blockhouse dating from the fourteenth century. It has some artillery emplacements and there was a chain across the harbour entrance to a matching blockhouse on the Fowey side. There's not much left of the Fowey one.

Fowey

Fowey is very pleasant. It has lots of shops for well heeled tourists, of which there are lots. What with the narrow lanes for driving and the narrow streets in the villages, I would definitely avoid high season.

We bought Cornish pasties, because we hadn’t had one so far and picnicked on them at the car park for Lantic Bay. It is a lovely beach and the view down from the cliff was glorious. Going down to the beach was very hard on the knees and climbing back up was hard on the lungs. We felt feeble, as there were families with small children, buckets and spades, picnics, barbecues, parasols – you name it, toiling up the path. The weather is sunny and quite hot, although there's a very pleasant breeze, and between larks, wild flowers, and views over a sea shading from a navy blue, through deep turquoise, to light blues and greens, it was most beautiful.

Lantic Bay

I had a swim and Phil sat patiently. He is good, accommodating my desire to swim even though he hates swimming himself.

There was thrift growing on the rocks - those pink pompom flowers that used to be on the reverse of the threepenny bit. Growing in profusion, they made a fine show.

On our final day, we went for another walk – you can easily cut across inland and return by the South West Coastal Path – had a really good lunch in Falmouth, and then went down to Readymoney cove so I could have a last swim. As I walked down the beach and entered the sea my internal monologue went something like this:

“ Oh, look, a jellyfish. Oo, that’s a big jellyfish. Heavens, that’s a massive jellyfish. Oh look, a purple jellyfish. That big one is more red than purple, it’s like a plate of liver. Actually, I’ve never seen so many jellyfish ever before. I’m not swimming in that lot.”

And I had to plod back up the beach, having only got in up to my knees, and even that was too far, as I have a large sting just above my knee. I shall have the sore patch for weeks, it’s like a burn. So that’s an unfortunate memento of what otherwise was a brilliant short break.  But at least we are sold on Cornwall again.