Tag: Cornwall

St Ives, continued

St Ives is a charming, if tourist-crowded, town of beautiful alleys and surprise views. We also visited a number of galleries and open artists studios and had a few good conversations with working artists about their work, always inspiring. If viewing in email, click the post title to click into the images and see them larger.

Predannack to the Lizard

Continuing on our way from Mullion we progressed from Predannack to Lizard. Here is a set of mostly unremarkable holiday snaps that hopefully conveys the beauty of the area and the riot of colours we encountered. (If viewing in email, click the post title to click into the images and see them larger.)

Mullion Harbour

Our final day of the group walking tour (26th May) we started from Mullion Harbour, shown here, and walked past Predannack to the Lizard, the southernmost point in the country, before circling back to Mullion. The first picture shows the harbour from atop a nearby hill but we actually started from inside the walls and you can see the beautiful clear water in the 2nd shot (if viewing in email, click the post title to click into the images and see them larger). Then we climbed up and out and were on our way.

B and B

I often post a “hotel room view” out the window. In this case we were staying at a lovely Bed and Breakfast, the Kimberley in St Agnes. Here are a few pictures from the room featuring the play of light through the blinds and on the walls. If viewing in email, click the post title to click into the images and see them larger.

Botallack

After returning to Nanjizal from near Land’s End we drove up to the disused Botallack (pronounced to rhyme with metallic) Mine, setting for both television versions of Poldark (although, later, we passed the actual Poldark Mine in the car). If viewing in email, click the post title to click into the images and see them larger.

Close to Land’s End

In the distance of the first picture you can see some white buildings. That’s as close as we got to Land’s End, the most westerly point in the country. Somewhere along the way we passed a Bronze Age barrow cemetery but it wasn’t tremendously apparent where it began and ended. If you click to enlarge the picture of the beach (click the post title first if you’re seeing this in an email), you can see a couple of people down there to provide some sense of scale and distance. As we walked back from almost-Land’s End to Nanjizal we came upon the same herd of horses who again tried nibbling at my clothes (while one napped).

Nanjizal

On Thursday 25 May, the penultimate of our walking group tour, we started out from Nanjizal. The horse below (click to see it larger) came right up and started chewing on my shirt, then my jeans and then started nuzzling my backpack. It either was smelling my lunch in there or was merely hoping for some food, I think. The long straight line in the map is us driving from Nanjizal up to Botallack. More about that anon. If viewing in email, click the post title to click into the images and see them larger.

Church and Castles

Past St Anthony Head we came to St Anthony’s Church and walked on from there into Emma’s Wood where we were able to see across the water to Pendennis Castle and St Mawes Castle. The (possibly apocryphal) story is that St Mawes was built because the cannon at Pendennis could only reach 1½ miles, but in the 3 years it took to build St Mawes, the reach of the cannon extended to 3 miles so the 2nd castle wasn’t actually needed by the time it was ready. If viewing in email, click the post title to click into the images and see them larger.

King Harry Ferry and Killigerran Head

The next day (24 May) we drove on to the King Harry Ferry (interestingly it’s driven across the water on a chain) and on to Porth, whence we trailed to the Killigerran Head. If viewing in email, click the post title to click into the images and see them larger.

Minions and Hurlers

The next day (23 May), we started at Minions and the Hurlers stone circles. A guide with another group entertained us with a lot of information about the circles, some of it sounding plausible, some not so much (radiation in the circle is lower than outside the circle, stuff about ley lines). Cows were resting among the neolithic stones.

We then made our way up to the Cheesewring, so called, because it looks like cheese that has been stacked to have the moisture wrung (pressed, really) out of it. If viewing in email, click the post title to click into the images and see them larger.

Holywell Bay to West Pentire

From Holywell Bay we followed the Coastal Trail to Kelsey Head, Porth Joke and West Pentire and Polly Joke before completing our circuit. We saw marvelous wild flowering (a woman we met said the pink ones were sea poppies). If viewing in email, click the post title to click into the images and see them larger.