We woke up on Easter Sunday to a very grey and rainy looking day. We had a huge cooked breakfast at our B&B before wrapping up warm and heading East this time, to the small town of Polperro.
Polperro is known for being one of the most beautiful villages in Cornwall, and certainly it's my favourite of all the ones we visited. It is on almost all of the itineraries for tour groups, so can get extremely busy, especially in the high season.
We were lucky that it wasn't a very nice day, as it seemed to have stopped lots of people from getting up early, perhaps hoping the rain would stop! So when we arrived we found it almost deserted, and even in the pouring rain it was still a beautiful village.
Again, I took so many photos of the harbour it took me hours to delete them all. A lot of the houses in Polperro are brightly coloured which was nice to see on a grey day. Unlike Port Isaac, Polperro is mostly flat and easy to walk around the traffic free streets.
Polperro has a history of smuggling, which is easy to imagine in its sheltered harbour, hidden from the eyes of port authorities. There is a smuggling museum in the town which explains the town's history, but we were content to skip this and continue along the winding streets and along the path overlooking the harbour.
We discovered also in Polperro, that not only are the seagulls absolutely huge, they are also very sneaky! Seagulls in Cornwall are known for being thieves, stealing Cornish Pasty's and Ice Creams, and Bradley certainly found this out the hard way, with his Pasty being knocked out of his hand onto the road by a seagull! We were definitely more careful with how we ate for the rest of our trip.
After being robbed of our lunch, we decided to continue on down the road to Fowey. The easiest way between the two towns is to get the car ferry from Bodinnick, the trip only takes a couple of minutes and is so smooth we didn't realise we were moving until we were halfway across the harbour.
The road between Polperro and Bodinnick is tiny and we were lucky we didn't come across any other cars. I would imagine the ferry gets quite busy in Summer, so not sure how all the cars get past each other!
Fowey, like Polperro, is one of the most popular towns in Cornwall and is a popular place to stay for visitors to the region. The rain had slowed to more of a drizzle, but the weather was still keeping the tourists away, which was excellent for us!
We stopped at a cute cafe called Mrs Noahs and had a ploughmans lunch and some hot tea to warm up before heading back into the rain to explore.
Fowey, while still being small, is much larger than the other towns we had visited, with a good selection of shops, cafes and restaurants. We spent most of our visit popping in and out of shops, picking up some warm socks while we were at it since my feet were freezing in my sandals.
Even after having already visited three seaside towns before Fowey, we still weren't tired of the sleepy streets and cute old houses. I'm really going to miss the beautiful old towns in England when we go home to New Zealand, we just don't have the same quaint towns full of history.
Afterwards we headed back to Mevagissey for dinner at the Salamander Restaurant, which is known for being one of the best restaurants in town. Unfortunately we didn't think the food was as good as we'd had at the Sharksfin down the road so we didn't bother taking any photos! The service was excellent though, I think we just prefer more informal restaurants.
The next day, on Easter Monday, we left Mevagissey after breakfast and headed back to London. We stopped at Tintagel to visit Tintagel Castle, which according to legend is King Arthur's Castle. Tintagel itself has also been described as the place of Arthur's conception.
Whether or not the stories are true, no one can really confirm if King Arthur existed or not, the Castle itself is certainly beautiful, and the surrounding landscape is one of the prettiest in Cornwall. You could easily spend an entire day here, exploring the Castle ruins and walking the path that hugs the cliffs on the coast.
It's an easy walk from the village to the Castle, down a steep walkway and along a winding path through the countryside. It's an easy walk down, but getting up was more of a challenge. If you don't have someone to push you up like I did, there is a 4-Wheel drive that will take you up and down the road.
There are also a lot of steps up to the castle and the cliffs, they are very steep and very skinny! So perhaps not great if you have mobility issues, though I'm sure you'd get some great views of the castle ruins and the sea below from the bottom anyway.
The view from above was so beautiful, looking down onto the cliff formations. One looked just like a dragons foot that had fallen perhaps in it's last battle.
There is a large cave down on the beach that is known as Merlin's Cave. The tide was coming in so we didn't go down for fear of getting stuck, but you get great view from above the beach anyway.
After a couple of hours spent exploring the castle and the coastal path, Bradley pushed me back up the hill and we left Cornwall behind for London. Lucky for us too, as the clouds were rolling in and a huge thunderstorm was approaching. You could easily spend a week exploring Cornwall, we only had a few days but I think we saw some amazing sights, and I can finally tick it off my list!
Wonderful pictures your words really make you feel like we are with you
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