Classic Cornwall

This is the land of Daphne Du Maurier’s gothic mysteries and tales of pirates and smugglers. The coastline lends itself to legends like the birthplace of King Arthur and the farms provide treats such as pasties and clotted cream.

Most surprising was finding a climate that grows amazing Mediterranean gardens, mountainous hydrangeas and gigantic hedgerows.

A quiet region that also manages to be riotous good fun.

Quick Tips:

Take time to chat. The people are brilliant and that’s their favorite word.

Best Way To Get Around:

We drove, I highly recommend it. The sights are far apart and the train only services Exeter, Plymouth, Falmouth, Penzance and St. Ives.

That leaves a lot of very special places to walk to or pay the high prices of tours.

Richmond Lodge stands at the top of Morab Road, the B&B row of Penzance. The charming, non-touristy shopping district and the beach are both within easy walking distance.

All the houses on this street are pleasant to look at, but Richmond Lodge was also a great place to stay. Our group of five enjoyed a twin room on the lower floor and a triple near the attic at some of the most reasonable rates of our entire trip.

The lounge is spacious and comfortable, the dining room well appointed and the service homey, cheerful and prompt. Our introduction to the full English breakfast was a smashing success.

The owners obviously love what they are doing and they do it wittily and with a smile. Their personality and verve attract return visits from some fun and quaint characters, so the common rooms tend to be full of life.

A well cared for and beautifully decorated B&B near the beach. The owners are energetic, professional and knowledgeable. They put in a lot of effort to make their house one of the best in the area.

The triple room we had here was cozy and charming, full of coordinated chintzes and Victorian ambiance.

This B&B offers perfect accomodations for those who want everything ship shape, but our rambunctious teenagers felt a little stifled.

Mead is an experience and so is a meadery.

We ended up sitting in this dark pannelled, medieval, semi-cellar with only a single candle to see where our plates were mostly because my eighteen year old son had just watched The 13th Warrior. It's a pretty good film, as Antonio Banderas films go, about Vikings. The intriguing thing about the film, from my son's point of view, was that the Vikings drank mead, a liquor made from honey. When he learned that mead was available in England, and that he could legally drink in England, our culinary fate was sealed.

The fare at this particular meadery tasted good. Unfortunately it too closely resembled what we get if we stand at the take out window of fast food seafood places here at home (the west coast of the US.) For example, the scampi my daughter ordered turned out to be breaded and deep fried prawns. And of course everything came with chips.

But we'd come here only secondarily for the food, what made this place special for us was the mead. They served three different types, mead, mead wine and mead liqueur. So of course, being family, we all ordered one and then shared the glasses to see which we liked better.

The verdict? Who knows! We got the glasses hopelessly mixed up and each of us had a different opinion of which was which! The bottom line is we had a really good time and enjoyed them all.

The only problem with eating at the Waterside Meadery was our expectations getting in our way. All in all it was a different and fun experience. I reccomend it for the atmosphere - and definitely for the mead!

Tintagel has wandered into the guidebooks as the legendary birthplace of King Arthur thanks to Geoffrey of Monmouth who introduced the idea in the 1300's. Whether that is its real history we’ll never know, but whatever did happen there was surely romantic and mysterious and tragic. The setting demands it.

Situated on a rocky headland that is being undercut by the furious wave action of the North Atlantic, Tintagel is a place to visit now. The sea will win sooner or later, the ruin will crash into the caves below and all that will be left is a rocky island.

The castle, really once a village atop a windswept peninsula, is only a ruin now. In most places only about two feet of wall remain. Still, it's an inspiring and fascinating place. Excavations have turned up pottery from 400–500AD, glass from 6th century Malaga and two 1500-year-old Latin inscriptions one of which mentions someone named Artognou. The first three letters of that name have caused renewed speculation.

Lower on the cliff, the remains of a 13th century castle provide the perfect place to rest and have a picnic after climbing the amazing stairs. The elderly and those who have difficulty climbing stairs should either give this sight a miss or prepare for an intense day. I’m an athlete, but due to an injury I was wearing a brace that kept my leg straight. I found Tintagel extremely slow going but well worth the effort.

Cornish clotted cream is the most decadent thing I’ve ever done that didn’t involve chocolate. The only guilty pleasure that comes close is squirting whipped cream into your mouth straight from the can. But when you have clotted cream as part of a cream tea you can indulge right out in the open instead of hiding behind the refrigerator door! (Of course I know that no one really does that.)

To stem the tide of self-reproach just a little, the Cornish provide jam and scones to eat with the cream. Yeah right, just give me a spoon! After the cream is gone the scones are good enough to eat plain. Oh, and the tea is wonderful too.

Cornish cream tea is available at most cafés in Cornwall and abundant in popular places like Penzance and Tintagel. It’s a wonder the Cornish keep so trim.