Cornwall

This trip reminds me a bit of our trip to Wales in one important way: I can't believe it took us so long to go here!  For all the time we've lived here and for all the travel we've done far and wide, I do feel silly that this was our first visit to Cornwall.  It's the southwestern sort of coattail of England.  It's a very popular seaside resort destination, and for very good reason.  It does take about 5 hours to drive to the northern part of Cornwall, longer all the way out to the tip.  And for this country 5 hours in a car is a long way.  But we haven't forgotten our cross-country American roots, and decided 5 hours was suitable for a long weekend.  The thing about Cornwall is that it will either be spectacular or dreadful, this wholly dependent on the weather.  And this country isn't exactly reliable for good weather.  Well lucky for us we hit the weather jackpot and ended up with glorious weather nearly the entire weekend.  

Cornwall is blessed with gorgeous countryside, seaside villages oozing charm, wonderful culinary delights, notable attractions and a coastline that'll blow the city grit out of your hair.  We made home base in charming Padstow, visited the fabled King Arthur's ruined castle in spectacular Tintagel, played on the beach down the road from our cottage, wandered and dined through pretty Padstow, cycled through the countryside and visited the the biomes at the Eden Project.

Tintagel

To King Arthur's castle

King Arthur's castle

Cornish pasties, where empanada meets a pot pie.  Delish!

Cornish ice-creams!

The only time outside of France that Madeleine has found a souvenir with her name, and spelled correctly!

Harlyn Bay Beach at Padstow

Padstow

Rick Stein's famous fish and chips, easily the best fish and chips to date!

Cycling 16 miles of the Camel Trail through the heart of northern Cornwall was a real highlight.

At our halfway point we enjoyed Cornish cream tea service in the countryside, just perfect!

Back in Padstow for an evening ice-cream stroll and dinner

Visiting the Eden Project has long been on our list, something inspired by an episode of the Amazing Race we saw years ago. While it was interesting and enjoyable, it was far too expensive for what is on offer.  We both felt like it was twice as expensive as it should have been.  Because of that, it didn't really impress us.  It was neat to see, but we can certainly check that off the list!

On our way back to London we stopped off in Exeter in Devon, which was just beautiful.

And we can thank these pile of rocks for an over one-hour delay on the A-road thanks to all the motorists who would slow down for a look.  And you could argue we were are part of this problem by looking at this photo, but let me assure you we were already pretty much stopped to a halt by the time we reached this point.  And magically just after, traffic was free flowing again.