St Ives & Cornwall

We got off the sleeper train at St Erth where we would catch our connecting train to St Ives.

After another short train ride we arrived in St. Ives, a place I'd be wishing to go to since I read about it in Country Living and Cath Kidston Magazine.

We were a little too early for any of the shops to be open so we walked down to the harbour.

Lots of artists come to paint in St Ives because there's something special about the light.

We stopped for breakfast at Porthmear Cafe which was right on the beach and had a lovely view over the waves.

The cutlery came in a sand bucket and the menu was decorated with ship wreck newspapers.

I tried the Monkey Business smoothie which was banana, peanut butter, yogurt and granola. It was delicious.

I also had an omelette stuffed with caramlized butternut squash, runner beans and goats cheese which was amazing. Tom had saffron toast which was really nice too.

The Tate was right next to the cafe, so we went for a look but all of the galleries were being rehung. It was a cool building though.

There was a really pretty Cath Kidston shop which looked like a little cottage home. I could have lived here happilly.

We then jumped on an open top bus which would take us along the coast to Land's End.

It was a fun ride though really windy at times. Tom had to hold his hat on.

One of the stops was Sennen Cove which was a really pretty beach.

After an hour and a half we arrived at Land's End.

There were some standing stones surrounded by minature houses.

There wasn't much to see apart from a tacky visitor's centre where we managed to get a squished penny but we really came for the dot on our fBlog maps.

There were some plaques of new year's resolutions people had made for the millenium.

I picked up a Cornish pasty for lunch and we headed off to catch a bus to Penzance.

Tom picked up a Rail Ale Train booklet at the station which you could get stamped in various pubs along the train line, so we stopped off in a couple of pubs to get ours stamped.

Afterwards we headed back to St Ives and went for cream tea in Bumble's Tearoom.

We shared scones and a delicious coffee cake.

We then went for a drink in The Sloop Inn which is the oldest pub in St. Ives dating back to 1310.

I tried some Cornish cider and we got another stamp in our Rail Ale book.

We went for dinner in the Harbour Fish & Chip bar which was amazing and more like a restaurant than a chip shop.

I had grilled salmon with chips which was delicious. All of the meals came with parsnip crisps sprinkled on top.

We also shared a pot of mussels which were really nice.

After dinner we shared a Ferrero Rocher & Tia Maria ice cream on the beach.