The Grand Tour........Cornwall

Well I do hope you are in for the long haul, 'cos these next couple of posts are a bit picture heavy and wordy!
I have been very fortunate over the last few years to visit some beautiful parts of our British Isles, but I had never been to Cornwall until about a month ago. I can't believe that it is already 4 weeks since we came home the time has simply flown by.
We stayed in a lovely barn conversion in St Tudy just outside Wadebridge, a pretty market town on the river Camel.

Imagine living in one of those apartments, what a stunning view over the river and a public park on this bank! Of course the glorious sunshine really showed it to its full advantage.

Our first full day was taken up with no less than four car boot sales, again in glorious sunshine. (Take a look at my previous post for pictures of some of our finds.) The last one which was an afternoon start was at Lanhydroch. As we were leaving we saw the signs to the Lanhydroch House, which is part of the National Trust and so we thought we would check it out. We were so glad we did as it turned out to be a stunning house and gardens, with a lovely tea room and off road cycle tracks. You can even hire bikes there.

The house was previously a private residence of the Agar-Robartes family, and despite a devastating  fire in 1881the house was restored and used as a family home until the families decline during the First World War when several members of the family including the heir to the estate were killed.The house passed into the hands of the National Trust in 1953.

Love the way that some of the history is painted onto objects or embroidered as on this tea towel!

The following day was a little  more overcast as we made our way to Boscastle...Such a picture postcard village, it is hard to believe the devastation caused by those floods 10 years ago!

We called into one of the local shops and was shown where the water level came to ....above the doors. Even though we have all seen the film dozens of times it is very hard to imagine what those few minutes must have been like.......

Then next we were off again and this time to Tintagel the legendary birth place of King Arthur. At this point I feel I should point out that although we may not have clocked up miles of walking on this holiday we certainly made up for it in the amount of climbing we did!

The views certainly made the effort worth while though I sometimes question peoples intelligence when you see families with young children wearing flip flops and elderly people with crutches, in high heeled boots climbing something like this!!!!

 On the Tuesday we had decided to cycle the Camel trail to Padstow a round trip of about 11 miles. So we duly arrived at the cycle hire shop to be told we could have any bike there as they didn't think there would be a rush as the weather forecast was so rubbish that day. It looked fine at the time and we all agreed, 'What's a bit of rain, it won't hurt us', and duly paid up and mounted our bikes.

Famous last words..... about 5 minutes in the heavens opened, a complete cloudburst. We got soaked right through to our underwear despite the fact that our coats were supposed to be waterproof. Well our intention had been to cycle to Padstein..er sorry Padstow, have fish and chips near the harbour and a wander round and then cycle home. For some reason we rather changed our plans, cycled there, turned straight round and cycled back, went home, showered and changed and then drove to Padstow by which time of course the sun had come out and it was a glorious afternoon.

 Do you recognise this shop.... the subject of 'The Fixer' Alex Polizzi. Loved that series, wonder if it is still doing well!

So that's part one of 'The Grand Tour'. Hope I haven't bored you rigid, but must say I am in need of a drink now. In part two we visit Eden and Heligan and even manage a trip on a steam train.

Bye for now, have a good week where ever you are,

TTFN

Jenny xx