Porthcurno must be one of Britain’s most beautiful beaches – look at it, would YOU think that was England?
It was a warm day and the sea had been taunting and inviting us all day as we grew hotter and sweatier. So we got into our togs, dove in and nearly hyperventilated. This is why:
We’ll wait for the Mediterranean for any more swimming!
Aside from the glorious beach Porthcurno was the site of the Minack Theatre built into the cliffside with granite and concrete. All the work of a woman (not to be trifled with as someone described her) Rowena Cade and a couple of loyal off-siders. Our visit didn’t coincide with a performance but there was a rehearsal of King Lear going on.
With such drawcards you really wouldn’t expect an experience straight out of League of Gentleman meets Little Britain at both the B&B and the pub. Our hosts at both were extremely peculiar and while the sprawling but empty pub was stuck in a particularly tasteless version of 1982, the decor of our cramped penthouse garret was something else!
Porthcurno to Lamorna was our final day of walking and it coincided with the most perfect English summer day. Bumblebees and butterflies were buzzing around the high hedgerows while we tried not to sing that part of Stairway to Heaven on high rotation. All the walkers that day were in equally sunny chatty moods and we saw a painter on the edge of the cliff painting the horizon-less ocean and sky.
Walking down into the steeply incised, much more sheltered mini-valleys we came across some surprisingly cool, incredibly lush sub-tropical coves which were so welcome on a warm day.
And then there was the ridiculously picturesque wee fishing village of Penberth.
It was our last chance to delight in the colourful carpets of heather and gorse. From afar it seems like a muddy watercolour wash on the moors but up close it is an exquisite, gently undulating carpet of purple, pink and yellow.
The coastal path was a walk through ancient history; with burial cairns, standing stones, and remains of Iron Age hill forts all around us. Even some of the stone walls that enclose tiny fields are thousands of years old. It’s hard not to imbue every clump of stones with meaning.
Standing stone in cabbage field
