Legends, Kings & Storms in Wet and Wild Cornwall

With just a couple of weeks left before our travels we take one more trip down to Cornwall. We arrive at the tail end of Storm Brendan battering the UK, the Cornish coast is being buffeted by the strong winds and the Atlantic is crashing in making a dramatic scene. The Atlantic is in an angry mood.

So after reacquainting ourselves with some of the Padstow pubs on our first evening, we spend the first full day here battling the elements at Tintagel, Boscastle and Port Isaac. Tintagel is of course the legendary site of King Arthur’s castle, with its wonderful tales of Merlin, Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. It’s the stuff of true myths and legends and in season a hugely popular place for visitors to Cornwall. Today though the grim weather has kept most people away and we meet only a handful of other hardy souls (or idiots perhaps) as we explore the fabled rocks.

The rocky outcrop said to have housed the castle is now separated from the coast by a narrow channel straddled by two footbridges. The surf crashes beneath and around and does its best to ignite the imagination. 

Boscastle, the scene of dramatic and destructive flash floods in 2004, is a spectacular natural harbour, the fierce tide crashing around corners and clashing with the apposite flow of the river. It remains a quaint and unusual setting.

Port Isaac retains all of its charm, one of the most picturesque of all of the many charming fishing villages of Cornwall, huddled up the three steep sides of the natural inlet. It’s another visitor hotspot these days, thanks in part to its notoriety as a setting for a popular TV series, but it is still a beautiful place. No matter how the spirit may change, you can’t really spoil a place which is so tightly built into natural terrain like this.

For our second day, there is respite from the weather. The temperature drops and blue sky and sunshine dominate, somewhat rare in this very wet English winter. We skip over to the other coast and leave the car in Fowey, yet another of Cornwall’s wonderfully picturesque little coastal towns. The Bodinnick car ferry takes us across the river to the start of today’s walk, around the wooded banks of the creek and through to the boatyard village of Polruan, where we take a welcome beer in the atmospheric Lugger Inn. A water taxi takes us back to Fowey, its elegant properties basking in the winter sun.

Everywhere has been quiet, very out-of-season. In all towns many of the pubs, cafes and restaurants, and even hotels, are closed. Much restoration and maintenance is taking place as all of these towns and villages use the off season to preen themselves for the coming summer. 

This will be our last visit to our beloved Cornwall for some time. The first trip of our major adventures is now less than a fortnight away, and Bangkok, the first stop, beckons.

So we have to finish with one last pasty. It would be rude not to.