A day of sun and a day of rain.

Sunday 23 and Monday 24 August 2015 – Lanivet, Cornwall and back to London.

Sunday was supposed to be another rainy day, but for a change when they got it wrong it was in our favour, and it turned out to be a pretty damn good day. We checked out of the hotel after a late breakfast with a plan to drive down the coast to Lands End. I had been there a couple of years ago, but El had not been there before.

I was keen to take the coast road from St Ives as I wanted to see some of the old Cornish tin mines. We made good time into St Ives, which was as expected really busy. We were going to try and find somewhere to stop for lunch – preferably at the Tate, but there was just nowhere to park the car. We still love St Ives though, and there will be more St Ives stories later in the year I hope.

At Carn Galver I found my roadside tin mine, yay !!

We drove down to Lands End and were shocked, stunned and horrified to see that there was a 6 pound fee to get into the car park, it was packed. I illegally backed up the road and drive off in disgust, 6 quid to park a car for an hour is ludicrous. We had a plan B – The Minack Theatre a couple of miles away. Which had a free car park, though we did have to pay 4.50 each to get in. Well worth it though. El had not been here either, so after a coffee and a couple of scones with cream and jam we went for a look around this unique site. The view over Porthcurno – what can you say !!

The Minack Theatre has been in operation since 1932 when Rowena Cade, who lived in Minack House offered her cliff side back yard to the local theatre group to perform Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest. A couple of years later the theatre had taken shape and was in use. Over the next 80 years a load of changes were made to the site and it is pretty near perfect.

We were fortunate to be there while a local group were rehearsing a new musical comedy to played at the theatre in the next couple of weeks, so we sat and watched under that nice warm sun for a while. We were not alone.

Over the years there has been a huge amount of productions, both big and small at the theatre, and we are quite keen to come here one and day see one.

Such a lovely spot.

We dragged ourselves away and headed off towards Bodmin Moor, we had booked a night in a 600 year old abbey that is now a guest house. From modern luxury to some really old luxury… The abbey was great, we were not allowed to enter the old tower alone, and as the guest house owner was busy at the time we did not go. This was a real shame as the rain on Monday morning was near torrential so we could not go then either.

We walked into the small town of Lanivet for dinner in the local pub, we had to book a table and had to eat at 6:00 as it is so popular. The food was OK, just pub food, so we were a little disappointed as we had read good reviews. The pub was nice though and we sat outside in the sun for a while before our meal.

After dinner we walked back to the hotel via the small church. There is supposed to be a marker in the church yard that indicates the geometric centre of Cornwall. I am hoping it was this, as it was the only marker in the church yard.

After an early night we had been planning on a couple of short walks in Bodmin Moor, before catching a mid afternoon train back to London. The weather was just foul, pouring with rain. We went to the station and changed our tickets to a much earlier train and drove into Bodmin town. We saw a sign to the historic jail so decided to head there for a coffee for half an hour before returning the car. The jail looked really interesting, and another place to go back to for a visit. I mean interesting in a grim historical way, definitely not in a wow way….

It was a really popular place on such a lousy day.

And that was it, back to Bodmin Parkway station and the train back to London.

Our original plan was to go back on Sunday, but the rail union had announced strikes on Sunday so we changed to Monday. As did everyone else. With last minute changed tickets we did not have reserved seats and the train was jammed, we grabbed unreserved seats where we could, and changed two or three times until we got seats together from just before Exeter, all the way back to Paddington. It was a long trip back. Why are return trips always slower than the trip to the holiday ?

And that was the end of my holidays.  I had a few days off back in London, where I did all the blog posts from the past three weeks. Work tomorrow – Friday 28th. Not looking forward to it really !

A great weekend away, love Cornwall.