Tintagel & Padstow

From King Arthur to Rick Stein

It was a day of contrasts.
After an evening pouring over the tourist brochures last night, we elected to visit Tintagel castle in the morning then go on for lunch a Rick Steins' fish and chip restaurant in Padstow.

In actual miles it's not very far from here to either of these places.But you do have to allow for the idiosynchracies of Cornish roads. It's impossible to speed down a one lane track or through a tree tunnel especially when it's twisting and turning all over the place with blind corners at every turn.

Still, we managed to get to Tintagel (thank God for sat nav) and find a car park. Tintagel itself is a really cute seaside town, but the main attraction is the nearby ruins of Tintagel Castle with it's legendary Arthurian connections.

Tintagel

The castle is set on a high cliff which can only be accessed by crossing a bridge strung between two cliffs and climbing a whole lot of stairs.
Susan wisely chose to sit in a tea room with her knitting while I went for the walk. Anyone who knows me knows that I am terrified of edges and this place had EDGES in abundance!!
I wasn't going to miss out just because of silly fears though, and there were lots of tourists around doing the walk too, so I bravely crossed the bridge and climbed up and up.



smuggler's caves in the cliffs?

the lovely cove at Tintagel

the water of the Atlantic was clear and blue

Am I really going up there?

The castle really is just ruins.....but the views!!! Wow wow wow! It reminded me a lot of being at Cinque Terre in Italy. The dramatic clifftops looking down over small harbours. There appeared to be lots of smuggling tunnels in the cliffs too, but maybe that's just my imagination.

views from way way up

peeking out King Arthur's window

Selfie at Tintagel

To climb further up past the castle there are no longer safety railings of any kind. Will I or won't I try it? The desire to see the views of the other side won out. I crept carefully up the path focusing my eyes on the path and refusing to look down.
It was so worth it! The view was amazing. I was very surprised to see people with youg children up there. I so woudn't have taken kids up there as it's way too dangerous. Getting back down again was the bigger challenge. I was almost frozen to the spot with fear and thought I'd have to be choppered off. I was actually shaking in my boots. I attached myself to a lady with a young boy of five who was also terrified, and we slowly and carefully made our way down together. Trying not to look down to the swirling water below. We made it!

Castle ruins



views back towards Tintagel

I survived the climb

I went all the way down to the beach

on the beach

By the time I got back to Susan I was red-faced and sweating from my exertions, so we had a cup of tea before driving on to Padstow.
Being a Sunday, Padstow was inundated with tourists. It was impossible to get a park close to the harbour, but ignoring a Carpark Full sign, we eventually found one a bit further away.
We walked up to the Rick Stein fish and Chip restaurant which is built to resemble an old fish market and joined the queue to get in for lunch. This is a very popular place. The only time I see people queueing like this for fish is on Good Friday.
It was good though. I tried Haddock and Susan had Plaice with our chips. It's served simply in cardboard boxes and we sat on wooden benches, but it was yummy!

fish'n'chips!

Susan at the Rick Stein restaurant

oh yum!

After lunch we walked around the harbour. It was really busy and lots of boats were coming and going. We decided against catching a ferry across to Rock on the other side of the estuary. Rock is where the rich and famous  (Harry and Wills) go to play with their friends in their luxury holiday villas. There are sandy beaches over there and lots of pleasure craft and boats were out on the water.

Rock

the harbour

We explored the town of harbour area of Padstow instead. I was amused to see three traditional cornish pasty shops lined up in a row. The other thing in abundance was ice cream shops. Of course we had to try one. Sadly the experience was somewhat dimmed by being diddled with change. I was sure I handed over a twenty pound note and was given change of ten. When I demurred, the girl was adamant that it was a ten. Oh well. you live and learn.

boats in the harbour

Padstow

Padstow

pasty, pasty or pasty?

We trundled back to the car licking our ice creams and  then headed back to our cottage. When we got in we took our cups of tea to the shaded barbeque area at the back of the barn. We were soon joined by Sue, Alan and Michael ,our farm hosts who brought out their own tea on a tray. They chatted away to us for some time until we realised it was almost time for "Hounds of the Baskervilles" on TV.
No I won't be going out at night for a walk on the moors.