Cornwall, May 2023

• Wednesday, May 17: Falmouth, St. Mawes
• Thursday, May 18: Minack Theatre, Lands End, Penzance
• Friday, May 19: Fistral Beach, Padstow
• Saturday, May 20: Tintagel, Port Isaac

The third leg of our 2023 England trip, following London and Oxford.

Wednesday, May 17

The Greenbank Hotel breakfast was a la carte, not buffet, so Barb got a full English Breakfast but couldn’t get crispy bacon. She was slightly sad. I had mackerel baked with eggs and cheese, basically a little quiche that was pretty tasty. Plus I got bits of Barb’s breakfast including the gammon ham slice.

Our plan for the day was to explore around Falmouth without having to drive anywhere. We left the hotel, pausing to take pictures of the harbour view. We passed some very dramatic looking plants, Echium pininana, the Tower of Jewels or Tree Echium native to the Canary Islands. We saw them in a few other places on our trip but none so nice as these in a small hillside park near our hotel.

We walked to the first ferry pier (the Prince of Wales Pier) and got tickets to St. Mawes. The man at the booth suggested that rather than wait 45 minutes, we could go down to other pier (Falmouth Custom House Quay) 10 minutes away to catch the 10:45 boat, same ticket, same price. We walked over, gaining a quick overview of the town’s High Street and noting places we might stop on the way back. 

The ferry to St. Mawes was easy. We had a nice view of Falmouth Harbour, including some Royal Navy ships used for training and docked more or less permanently, according to the ferry mate. One was the RFA Mounts Bay, a landing ship.

After 20 minutes we arrived at the cute little town of St. Mawes. We walked directly to St. Mawes Castle, about ½-mile from the ferry pier. The castle dates back to Henry VIII and the 1540s and saw service off and on all the way through World War II. There was not much happening at the castle these days but we clambered about for an hour or so. The views were the best thing.

We headed back into town to look for the tourist info centre. We asked the lady who truly had the best Cornish pasty (every shop claimed to have the award winning best ever); she pointed us toward a deli operated by John Scorse. He was out of beef pasties but we got an onion and cheese one to share – mostly Ada and me. Barb had some pretty good bacon potato chips (since she was deprived of bacon at breakfast) and Diet Coke. I enjoyed the pasty – very flaky crust, though could have been cheesier inside, I thought – but then I noticed the sandwiches John was producing and I decided to try a wheat baguette with parma ham, pears and gorgonzola cheese. John even took a picture of it before giving it to me – I think it was the first time anyone ordered it. It was pretty darn tasty but I saved half to eat later as it was time to catch the ferry back to Falmouth.

Before leaving, Ada wanted to stick her toes in the water so she could say she bathed on a Cornwall beach. She did so at the foot of the Idle Rocks Hotel, a Relais & Chateaux inn with a 5-star restaurant. I had originally seen it featured on a travel show years ago and it was one of the first places that inspired me to come to Cornwall. I considered staying there this trip but decided it was a little too chi-chi for our tastes and a little too isolated for our purposes…but it did look nice. Maybe someday, though doubtful.

As we left St. Mawes harbour, I noticed the tide had dramatically changed in the couple of hours since we’d arrived. I should have taken a picture when we arrived at low tide and various boats were laying sideways on the mud floor of the harbour. In just a couple of hours the tide has risen at least 4-5 feet and the boats were afloat. I hadn’t realized the tides in Cornwall would be so extreme — more than 15 feet in some locations.

Back in bustling downtown Falmouth (irony!), we started the 20-minute hike from the ferry pier to Pendennis Castle, double checking whether Barb wanted to walk that far. She did, so we got underway, then got mildly lost more than once along the way. The signs were not great and we missed a crucial one directing us up the hill for the final quarter mile or so. Barb was not pleased and her knees were creaking. We finally made it and started working our way through the various buildings. Like St. Mawes but larger, the castle was originally built by Henry VIII and stayed in actual military service until the 1970s. We learned about its roles in WWI and WWII, saw many different guns and cannon used through the ages, and climbed all over the actual castle. From the castle’s vantage point, I realized that Falmouth was actually a good deal larger than I thought, spilling over to the other side of its peninsula.

Our castle reconnaissances complete, we slowly walked our way back to town – at least it was downhill. We stopped at a doggy treat store and the Cream Cornwall store for ice creams and a few other goodies. We finally made it back to our hotel around 5pm, pretty well exhausted with about 20,000 steps. We had a nice drink at the bar terrace overlooking the harbor. I had gone up for a shower when Barb was bombarded by a seagull and had to rinse out the poop from her blouse. Glad I missed that.

Based on TripAdvisor recommendations, I booked dinner at CJs at the Sanctuary on the outskirts of Falmouth. We drove there on some increasingly tiny roads, finally finding the spot and confirming that it was open. We were led to our seats in the middle of the sanctuary, one of only 4 or 5 active tables. Barb and Ada examined the chef’s extensive collection of Star Wars memorabilia, evidence of a serious collector. The waitress/wife of the chef was adorably friendly and funny and knew nothing about Star Wars. 

Ada and I ordered baked scallop appetizers with chorizo while Barb had a crayfish cocktail. Both were phenomenal. Barb and Ada shared an enormous bowl of mussels in a really good cream sauce as an entree. I had a seafood pasta with mussels, crayfish and crab in a slightly spicy creole sauce. It was very tasty but also enormous. I got to where I just ignored the pasta and picked out the seafood. The whole meal was excellent and left no room for dessert. Ada was sweet to pick up the tab before I could get to it. It was one of the best meals we had on the trip and well worth the small adventure getting there. Fortunately, Google led us on some larger roads heading back to the hotel. We had a nightcap and chatted in our room for another hour or so. Barb and I fell asleep to episodes of New Tricks and Silent Witness.

Thursday, May 18

The ladies had pretty much the same full English breakfast choices while I branched out to a florentine eggs benedict that was excellent, plus a fruit plate. I found it nice to get some variety for breakfast. And I must say, the Brits really know how to poach eggs.

Today’s target was a drive to some of the coastal sights of Cornwall. The highlight and only thing I’d booked ahead was a 10:30am tour of the Minack Theatre which meant we had to get on the road by 9am. We got a late start out of the hotel (not my fault), then were further delayed by a delivery truck that blocked us into the rear parking lot, but we finally got going about 20 minutes behind schedule. The Minack Theatre sent us an email exhorting us to be on time for our 10:30 ticket admission and also gave directions that advised us to ignore the satnav directions and instead drive nearly to Land’s End to drive on easier roads into the theatre location.

I plugged their directions into Google with an intermediate stop in Sennen, then I forgot that I’d put in an intermediate stop. We passed by one set of signs for the theatre and I pushed onward over Barb’s objections, following the directions I’d plugged in by suggestion of the theatre. I thought we were on time for our destination but when Google said “You have arrived” we were in the middle of a tiny village, no theatre in sight. I was confused and stopped at a coffee truck who explained we still had 10 minutes to go. I finally remembered that I’d put in the intermediate destination of Sennen; there is always some logic to computerized directions, you just need to find it. So we would be late, but we finally got to the Theatre complex around 10:45. The drive itself had not been bad; the roads were decent and the traffic not a hindrance.

There were friendly staff people to help guide us to parking and direct us toward the theatre, and they made no fuss over us being late. We got our first glimpse of the theatre dramatically spilling down the cliffside over a gorgeous Porthcurno Beach; it was a sight to behold.

We were on our own to explore the complex, aided by an audio guide accessible from our phones. Unfortunately, the cafe and small historical exhibit building were closed for renovations (we could hear the jackhammers working inside which was a little distracting). There was a man down on the stage giving a dramatic account of the building of the theatre but we arrived in mid-speech and couldn’t really hear him from the top over the jackhammers. There was another guide giving a horticultural tour to a cluster of people but even overhearing a little of that it was geared far more into the flora than we wanted. So we each wandered around the complex on our own. I listened to the audio guide and marveled at the views in each direction.

The visual impact of the Minack is completely stunning. The back story of the theatre’s construction and development is equally improbable. The brainchild of a woman, Rowena Cade, aided by gardener Billy Rawlings over more than 40 years of nearly continuous construction and expansion beginning in 1930, most of it by hand. At least that’s the story that was presented by the actor/storyteller (Mark Harandon) recounting the life of Billy Rawlings. In truth, Billy died in 1966 and Rowena passed in 1983. Since then, the site has been managed and greatly expanded by a charitable trust and local management team, but the Rowena and Billy origin story is hard to beat.

There was a performance scheduled in the afternoon so we had to be off the site before 2pm. We spent more than two hours at the theatre, seeing most of what we could see. I had thought about getting tickets for the show (The Battling Butlers) but I’m glad I didn’t. Aside from not being especially interested in that particular show, the not-very-comfortable seating and the uncertainties of the Cornwall weather made it an iffy bet to plan in advance. As it happened, the weather this day was perfect, but I’m still glad we had a chance to see the whole site and clamber about at will rather than sit for a few hours for a show. I’m sure seeing an evening performance on a clear night with a full moon rising over the water would be completely magical but I wouldn’t want to be the one driving home on those roads in the dark.

Next we headed over to Lands End, only 10 minutes away. I’m something of a sucker for Land’s End type place (see Finisterre in Spain, or most any ocean-facing cliff). This one was entirely a tourist trap, a carny area of food stalls, gift shops, a Wallace and Grommit exhibit of some sort, even an organ grinder. The professional photographer at the Land’s End signpost appeared to have a thriving business making slight modifications in the sign and taking photos. We were able to take our own snaps between his.

The actual coastline was quite pretty and the weather was gorgeous. We could see the Isles of Scilly in the far distance, some 25 miles offshore which is something of a rarity, I take it. I take it it also meant it was about to rain.

We got a bite to eat at Lands End, a meat pasty that was not nearly as good as the one in St. Mawes and a hot dog for Barb. We ate protectively at a bench to make sure sea gulls didn’t steal any of our food.

After about an hour at Lands End, we got back on the road to visit Mousehole, about 30 minutes away, according to Google. What Google didn’t tell us was that those 30 minutes would tempt death as we wound on tiny, nerve-wracking roads that were somehow two-way even though our single car barely fit on them. What’s worse, they were listed with a speed limit of 60 miles per hour which was unimaginable. Fortunately, on-coming traffic was light and I only had to stop and back up once to find a spot to let another car squeeze through.

I actually enjoyed the first few minutes of the drive but after 20 minutes I’d had enough. Barb was frazzled far earlier than me. Ada was somewhere in between, eagerly snapping photos trying to capture a sense of the adventure. When we finally made it to the outskirts of Mousehole we had to wait a while in a traffic jam as a truck made a delivery to a construction site. Eventually we made it into the cute little harbour town but couldn’t find a place to park in our initial swing through. Barb had had enough and urged we leave immediately so we headed right back out of town with nary a photo op. So much for Mousehole.

We drove onward to Penzance, 15 minutes from Mousehole over some bigger roads, thankfully. Penzance seemed to be a much larger town than Falmouth. We made one pass through before finding some gas and circling back to the beach and oceanside promenade. We found a great parking spot and walked along the Promenade for a few hundred yards.

Our sightseeing energies for the day were just about tapped out but we drove another 15 minutes from Penzance to get a view of the Castle on St. Michael’s Mount. It requires tickets purchased online to actually visit the Castle, Gardens or Harbour. None of us were inclined to spend the time or money; we were content to just view the castle from a nearby parking lot. I think it was a good decision not to mess with going to the island. It seemed to be a pale echo of Mont-Saint-Michel in France.

We drove back to Falmouth and had some quiet time on the deck by the bar. Dinner at Pennycomequick pub. Fish and chips for the ladies (fish good, chips not so much), a cheeseburger with bacon and blue cheese for me. I could taste the bacon but not the cheese. All through Cornwall I found the cheese to be deliciously creamy but bland — there was no such thing as a sharp flavor, I found. An increasingly noisy crowd gathered in the pub shortly after we arrived. By the time we finished dinner, I was eager to leave. Again, we chatted in our room for another hour or so before falling to sleep to more episodes of New Tricks and Silent Witness.

Friday, May 19

For our last day of Greenbank Hotel breakfasts, I tried the muffin sandwich with chorizo, ham, cheese and sriracha — a protein bomb that again managed to not be spicy at all. The ladies still went with their variants on the Full English breakfast, each getting more precise about what they didn’t want (no blood sausage, no gammon ham/bacon, extra mushroom for Barb, etc.).

We checked out and bid farewell to Falmouth, driving about 90 minutes to our stop by Fistral Beach, a surfing beach) near Newquay. I’d given ourselves the option of driving to St. Ives, a beach and arts town further down the coast but we decided against it partly because Ada had already been there and because I felt we didn’t need to drive through another town without a real agenda or destination to see. I had a memory of the relative futility of going out of our way to see Laxe along the Costa del Morte in Spain, or even Mousehole and Penzance the previous day.

Fistral Beach, I hoped, would be different both because there might be surfers to watch and there was also a Rick Stein’s restaurant that promised fish & chips. It turned out to be a good choice, despite the relatively gloomy, grey morning, our one spell of less than gorgeous weather in Cornwall. Fistral Beach was huge, especially at low tide, with real sand and an expansive view. We stood at a little headland for a while, taking it all in. There were lots of surfers, most of whom sat bobbing in the water waiting for the right wave. Few of the surfers seemed to be especially good but they were fun to watch and it was exciting to see someone actually catch a good ride.

Ada went down to the water which was a long walk. She made friends with some dog walkers along the way. Ada seemed to attract dogs wherever she went. Barb and I later noticed that we didn’t see nearly as many dogs when we weren’t with Ada. While Ada was on her walk, Barb and I went into the Headland Hotel and wandered around. I didn’t know much about this Victorian gem or its interesting history. Opened in 1900 to attract tourists to Cornwall, the hotel hosted royalty and the well-heeled for decades. It was used as an RAF hospital in WWII and fell into decline through the 1950s-1970s. The semi-classic 1990 film The Witches was shot at the hotel. Extensively renovated again through Covid with a modern spa and little village of family vacation homes, the elegant hotel impressed Barb and me. I recalled seeing it in my research and ruled it out for its isolation and expense, but I could see it being an attractive destination for a summer or winter getaway.

We reconnected with Ada and went to the small cluster of shops and restaurants near the beach. Though it was early and we were still full from breakfast, we stopped in for a light lunch at Rick Steins carryout: we shared an order of fish and chips and a salt and pepper shrimp appetizer. This restaurant can evidently get very crowded with long wait times and has more than its share of very bad reviews, but for us the place was not crowded, our service was good and the food was tasty and just the right amount. The salt and pepper shrimp were actually the first thing I had in Cornwall with some discernible punch of spicy flavor.

I suppose now is the time to discuss Rick Stein, a peripatetic British chef, restaurateur, TV cooking and travel host and writer. He has a mini-empire of restaurants and hotels around the world including a bunch in Padstow where his family had a summer home where he grew up. He also has an extensive catalog of BBC travel shows; I’m shocked they are not more widely seen in the U.S. — they’re a natural trove for PBS Create, BBC America or Acorn. I discovered his three seasons of Rick Stein’s Cornwall on YouTube during my research for the trip and they provided a number of inspirations for places to see (and some to avoid). Produced during Covid, this series answers the question of what does an energetic, opportunistic TV travel presenter do when he can’t travel? He does a series (three seasons worth) in his own backyard, conveniently promoting many of his own establishments and those of friends and family. In any case, he’s good at what he does and he was the reason we were headed to Padstow. We had reservations at his restaurant for the evening and we had lunch at his Fistral place as well as my way of thanking him for his efforts.

We lingered to watch the surfers for a while, then it was back in the car. I had thought to maybe stop at the Bedruthan Steps for another coastside cliff walk but decided to head straight to Padstow. We found out way to the Padstow Harbour Hotel and were able to check in. Our room #6 overlooked the River Camel which was at low tide with lots of sandbars and grounded boats but unfortunately I neglected to get any photos of the impressive sight. My lame excuse is the windows of the hotel were old and wavy and covered by shutters and also the harbour front had an unsightly few warehouses and shipping containers…but I still should have taken a shot because we never were in position to see low tide there again. As the 20-foot tide moved in, the sandbars disappeared and the boats went afloat.

We wandered the cute little town of Padstow for an hour or so. So many dogs, so many pasties, so many ice cream shops.

We had dinner reservations at Rick Stein’s The Seafood Restaurant for 5:30 that evening. This was the latest time available for this Friday or Saturday evening when I searched for reservations about a month ahead. I guess I should have been more on top of tracking when reservations opened but I was glad to at least get this slot. The place is very popular, especially on weekends. I was worried that the place might not live up to my expectations or that Barb might balk at the prices, but it turned out to be a delightful evening.

Such a nice dinner! To start, I had a blood orange gin and tonic; Ada had a wine spritzer of some sort. The bread tray included a smoked fish salad and a tasty dark sourdough. We shared a warm plate of shellfish including shrimp, crab, oysters, scallops, clams, a razor clam (just one…I grabbed it), mussels, cockles and whelks, all swimming in a garlic and olive oil bath. We had a fine time making a mess of the table and tried unsuccessfully to not to get shellfish on ourselves. That really should have been enough but we also ordered entrees: Ada had a fish curry, Barb got turbot in a hollandaise sauce, and I got Dover sole meuniere which the waiter deboned tableside. All of them were very, very good; we can verify because we traded substantial chunks of each. The meal was our biggest splurge of the trip and well worth it.

We couldn’t handle dessert at The Seafood Restaurant but thought we’d get some ice cream in town. We were surprised to find most of the shops closed after 7pm so we wandered back to the hotel and had dessert at their restaurant. I got a cheese plate with a brie, blue and cheddar. Each was so creamy they all tasted like butter. Barb got ice cream and Ada had something I don’t recall. We watched the tide start to go out as the sun set. Very pleasant.

After desserts, we retreated to the room and stumbled into a Doc Martin episode which we watched for clues about Portwenn/Port Isaac that we’d be visiting the next day.

Saturday, May 20

We were happy to see the hotel offered a buffet of continental breakfast items along with a menu of egg/cooked items. I got scrambled eggs with salmon, Barb got the full English breakfast and Ada got a vegetarian English breakfast.

Our nearly one hour drive north to Tintagel was relatively easy, on only a few of the smaller roads, and we arrived shortly after 10am. It took us a while to figure out where to park in the town but once we did it was easy and the crowds had not yet arrived. I was worried that Barb would be overwhelmed by the number of up and down steps involved in exploring Tintagel Castle but with Ada’s encouragement she was game. She crossed the scary high bridge and later even took on the steep steps down to the visitor center.

Having seen a PBS/Nova documentary on the “Secrets” of Tintagel, I was pretty well-versed in the relatively recent discoveries that the site was a 4th-5th century trading outpost with Mediterranean connections. Knowing that, however, removed some of the mystery and charm connected to the Arthurian legends that had grown over centuries. We tried to make sense of the various ruins on the site, and enjoyed the lovely day – not too windy, not too cold, sunny with a miles of visibility – we were very lucky.

In 2016, English Heritage commissioned and installed a sculpture that has often thought to represent King Arthur but in fact is called Gallos, Cornish for “power”. The sculpture has a spooky presence and is a natural photo magnet.

Barb braved the steep steps down to the visitor center, making friends along the way including a very nice man who helped her down one set of steps. I really liked the dramatic of the bridges from below. Along the way, we passed the small beach with Merlin’s Cave. Ada and I refrained from going down; I figured we had a good enough view and we didn’t want wet, sandy feet.

The small exhibition center was pretty good for telling the Tintagel story in a compact space. When we were done, we eagerly sprang for the GBP2.50 jeep ride back up the hill to the town. We found our treasured English Heritage “Ruler of Rulers” (now including Charles III) at the gift shop at the top of the hill.

Our Tintagel explorations complete, we went back to the car and headed to Port Isaac about 20 minutes away. Port Isaac is a picturesque fishing village most famous for being the fictional Portwenn and the actual filming location for the long-running Doc Martin TV series.

We got to Port Isaac reasonably easily and jumped into the first main car park we found, though it was still a 15-minute walk down into the town. There were few signs or directions where to go so we followed Google Maps into town, coming in kind of through the back door. The tide was way out so the little harbor was a mud flat with a few grounded boats, the town itself nestled around its shores. Barb and Ada immediately picked out Doc Martin’s house – I had no clue.

We walked through the quaint but mostly touristy little town. There were actually refreshingly few overt Doc Martin references or signs, other than one shop that headquartered a range of Doc Martin walking tours. Otherwise, the emphasis was on Port Isaac and its own history outside of the show. We made a short pilgrimage to the Doc’s house, then opted for lunch at Chapel Cafe nearby, recommended by TripAdvisor. It was a cute little restaurant and shop housed in a converted church. I had a very good ham and cheese sandwich on soft whole grain bread. Ada and Barb had variants of tea and scones and enjoyed perusing the shop’s wares.

We headed back toward the car, climbing the steep hill. This time, we followed Google up Rose Lane, a tiny, pedestrian only alley that was very picturesque, with even tinier alleys spawning off it. It’s hard to imagine living a modern life down those little rabbit warrens but some people obviously did.

After enjoying Fistral Beach the day before, we were looking forward to seeing another surfing beach. The drive to Polzeath wasn’t bad but when we got there it wasn’t what I expected from the pictures I’d seen. In fact, the pictures I’d seen of a broad beach with a nice hotel overlooking the scene must have been a different beach somewhere though I haven’t been able to place it.

Polzeath was set in a cove with the tide way out, exposing a very long beach. There were a lot of surfers and boogie boarders in the water, trying to catch the waves that were smaller and more regular than at Fistral. It turned out more of them were beginners so were a little less interesting to watch. Barb found a bench to sit near the surfing action, Ada walked down to the water’s edge, and I followed the coast path back toward town to see if I was missing something. The town was a scruffy little beach town with no sign of the grand hotel from my imagination. I went back to Barb’s bench and we waited a short while for Ada to return.

We got back to Padstow in time to relax with a gin and tonic. We killed time until 7:30 then headed down to dinner a little early for our reservation at The Mussel Box; luckily, they were able to seat us early. We ordered an appetizer of scallops for Ada and me, followed by two small bowls of mussels, one with a wine sauce and one with curry. The scallops were good, feet and all, with a nice garlicky sauce good for dipping. The mussels were likewise good – the curry sauce was not spicy but had a nice flavor. The “thin” fries were not very thin but were good while they were fresh. All in all, not a bad meal, but we may have been better off going to Rick Steins’ fish and chips shop down the wharf.

We went back to the hotel for ice cream and cheese once again. I didn’t need or really want the cheese, but I plowed through it once more, along with a half pint of cider. I’m sure I would have been better off without them but resistance was futile. 

We had one final night in Padstow before departing Cornwall. The next leg of our journey would take us back to Oxford via Bristol, then on to London.