Cornwall Tour - Saturday 30th April

There is one great thing about B&B’s and that is the breakfast. This lovely old lady cooked us up a proper English breakfast, while her husband told us all about his great granddad who emigrated to New Zealand...Dave, you would have loved it. Jeez, the breakfast was good though. We left pretty soon after breaky, after the other couple that were staying came down to the dining room and engaged our hosts with thrilling talk about magnolias.

Next stop, Padstow. The weather was kind to us, with the sun shining but with a cold wind. We arrived in this pretty little town and basically the first shop we came across was Rick Stein’s Deli. Lou was in foodie heaven. And then heaven was about to get a little better when Hamish noticed a poster saying that the man himself, was going to be doing a book signing that afternoon!!!! You wouldn’t read about it.

Lou outside Rick's Seafood Restaurant

Boats moored up in Padstow

The May Pole!

So plans were altered so we could stay in Padstow a little longer than anticipated. We then wandered around the town itself, as it was May Day the next day, all the streets and moored boats were draped in flags which was extremely impressive. There were so many great shops around that you could tell they were all there for the tourists as Padstow only has a permanent population of about 3,000 people. We found a little park on top of a hill looking down on the village and played around with the time settings on our camera, we have found that we can’t jump in unison.

Classic jumping shot

Really little houses in Padstow

Even though we were still full from breakfast we made our way back to Rick Stein’s café for lunch, and lucky we did as whilst we there the waiting list blew out to about an hour. Now we must point out that the Rick Stein Café is different from the Rick Stein seafood restaurant (the restaurant is more expensive). So we had a glass of Rick’s own Sauvingnon blanc which was really nice, salt and pepper prawns and a fillet of sole followed by the best chocolate cake we had ever eaten. Sorry Tracy this was on another level. What an experience, and it wasn’t too pricey either. So glad we went.

Gold

We thought we would head down to the book signing early to get a book and have another quick look around, lucky we did as a line had formed a good hour before he was due to arrive! So we joined in, and waited in the rain (what hardcore fans). And then the time came – I have to admit I was a little star struck, I was planning on saying that we had just been to his café and it was great etc, but I didn’t say anything! Anyway we got a book signed and we were off in the rain to our next destination – St.Ives.

We are not really sure why we thought we had to go to St.Ives, maybe because Lou have been using St.Ives face wash for 10 years but glad we went, it was a very pretty beach town. We found that almost all of the places we visited had a distinct lack of parking in the main centre which was annoying, but having said that we also found that British people don’t think it’s weird to park on double yellow lines, like all the time.We also happened on this random abandoned building that we took some snaps of. Think its something to do with the mining they used to do in the area.

Random building

Next spot was Land’s End. Again, not really sure what compelled us to visit, but the name of it was pretty cool. On the way our handy Lonely Planet guide recommended that we stop off at the Minack Theatre. This was very very cool, unfortunately we arrived 5 mins after closing time but we could still have a nosey round. Basically it’s an open-air theatre, constructed above a gully with a rocky granite outcrop jutting into the sea (minack from Cornish meynek means a stony or rocky place). The view was spectacular, even with a gale force wind. Even though it was closed we have included a photo from their website to show what we are on about

At Minack's Theatre

Land's End

Not sooo dangerous

Miniature village

We were staying in Penzance on the Saturday night so we checked into our hostel and had a quiet night in after cooking our budget dinner at the hostel.

Penzance was a little disappointing, Lou had it in her head that it would be a cool town with heaps of pirate relics but there really wasn’t. There seemed to be lots of pubs and small casinos, and that’s about it.

When we got back, Lou did some research on what pirates actually had to do with Penzance and was extremely disappointed to find that Penzance is the home of the pirates in Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera, The Pirates of Penzance. “At the time the libretto was written, 1879, Penzance had become popular as a peaceful resort town, so the very idea of it being overrun by pirates was amusing.” Gutted.

Highlight #1: A clear winner, meeting Rick Stein.

Highlight #2: A great food day, from the massive breaky to Rick Stein’s lunch and the Cornish fudge.

Lowlight: Missing the Minack

Interesting fact #1: Rick Stein opened his first business in Padstow in 1974 and was Stein was awarded the OBE in the 2003 New Year Honours list for services to tourism in Cornwall. Some locals call Padstow Padstein as Rick owns pretty much half the village.

Interesting fact #2: Rick’s beloved companion Chalky died in January 2007. RIP Chalky.