Cornwall Day II (and a little bit of chazzing!)

Well, the long term forecast has said that our 2nd day in Cornwall was likely to be rather overcast with maybe some rain so SD and I had always planned to use this day to do a little shopping in Penzance.

Normally when we are in Cornwall we try to park the van up and just walk or cycle everywhere and Penzance would usually be visited on a transition day from one part of Cornwall to the next but after such a hectic day the day before (all that lolling about on rock in the sun and stuff!) it seemed like the perfect way to spend the day.

We found a parking spot half way between Penzance and Newlyn and headed towards the sea through some beautiful gardens:

Sometimes it can very very difficult to differentiate between Cornwall and the Med.

From here if we looked right we could see Newlyn and the fishing fleet and to the left lat Penzance and the busy shops.

We chose to turn right.

Newlyn is home to one of the largest fishing fleets in the UK with over 40 acres of harbour. If we had arrived earlier we could have visited the bustling fish market where buyer come from all over the continent to buy over 40 varieties of fish and shellfish including the famous Newlyn crabs.

Unlike many of Cornwalls seaside town Newlyn is relatively untouched by commercialism as it's still a working harbour so the warehouses haven't been converted into uber expensive apartments and the quaint, narrow streets lined with tiny cottages haven't been bought as holiday homes to be left  empty for more than half the year.

Newlyn is very real and I spent a couple of lovely hours wandering around:

Taking photos

of the narrow streets

Before we stopped at a bench overlooking the harbour for lunch to admire this view:

As you can see, the forecasters had got it slightly wrong and it was another lovely day!

After lunch we strolled along the seafront to Penzance, it's only about a half hour of gentle walking:

With lots of stops to admire the views

We passed by the stunning Jubilee swimming pool a 1930s cubist-inspired lido  built in 1935, to commemorate King George V’s silver jubilee.

It is one of only a handful of saltwater tidal pools left in Europe and one of the few remaining 1930s lidos in the country.  In fact, measuring 100 x 73 metres on its longest axes, the Jubilee Pool is Britain’s largest surviving seawater lido.

It suffered enormous damage in the the freak winter storms of 2014, when the waves breached the walls and twisted railings, and demolished changing rooms and terraces, while exposing the granite that lay beneath the pool but it has since been rebuilt and when we were there were plenty of happy swimmers:

SD and I spent several happy hours wandering the streets of Penzance.  In and out of every charity, vintage and second hand shop where I stumbled upon this!:

 Isn't it FANTASTIC - I couldn't resist it

 Especially as SD has often bemoaned the demise of of his previous top hat which (as it was 3/4 height) was apparently perfect to wear whilst driving a Reliant Robin (a story for another time perhaps ...).

On the way back to our campsite we debated the wisdom of stopping in Mousehole (which much NEVER be pronounced MOUSE HOLE but rather MOUSEL) what with it's extremely narrow streets and our long wheel base van.

But there's no fun in being wise if it means that you miss out on THIS is there??

The quality of this photo isn't great as it was taken on my phone but the lights on the water were just beautiful!

And so our 2nd happy day in Cornwall ended but it was hard to be sad that it was over as the next day our plan was to drive to St Just and cycle from there to Cape Cornwall.

More of beautiful Cornwall coming soon!