15th June 2016 Daily Blog from Cornwall Day 3. Penzance and St Ives.

Today we’re having a slightly more sedate adventure than usual. We are covering the seaside towns of Penzance and St Ives. We started in Penzance and then took the 25 minutes train journey to St Ives.

Yeaaahhhh! Penzance!

We parked in Tesco which thankfully is far away enough from the town centre to have no parking restrictions. Free parking for the day. Result. It is also lined with palm trees which is cool. It is about 15 minutes walking to the station from here. We got our tickets already which were £8.90 return for the two of us. We’d been recommended not to drive to St Ives as the roads are terrible and parking non-existent.

 My best photo of Penzance.

Penzance was not really being shown off in its best light as we wondered round. It was a very cloudy day and the threat of rain was constant. However we could tell that it was probably very nice in the sun. The water was crystal clear. There is a small harbour but its not particularly pretty.

 Waiting for the train in The Fat Fish.

We turned into a small park but this too was nothing to write home about. We went through the town centre which had some nice little boutique shops and a lot of charity shops. We did go in a great pet shop which had some really great natural dog treats for bargain prices. Chuck loved this shop and it was difficult to keep his inquisitive little nose out the different bags.

Much nicer than Penzance harbour I think?

The trains leaving Penzance are few and far between so we had an hour to kill. We went into a café by the station called the Fat Fish. This is a great place to wait. They do take away type food and breakfasts and are also licensed. I had a pint of Cornish Rattler which was delicious.

 Waiting for the rain to stop.

The train journey to St Ives involves a change at St Erth. From here it’s an old fashioned bus type train into St Ives. The view is obscured a lot of the way but glimpses of the coast do peak through occasionally,

  Back streets back alright.

St Ives is very small but somehow we managed to spend five hours getting round it. We did consume quite a lot of food and beverage in this time though. There are lots of narrow streets full of art galleries and artisan food shops if you like spending money.

 St Ives Head. Does that need an apostrophe?

After going up onto St Ives head though, shopping, eating and drinking is all that’s left to do really. Thankfully the town provides well for this. We found a great gin bar called ….. We decided to eat here too as the food sounded good. We weren’t disappointed. It really was pretty special. My only regret is that we had to rush it slightly to get the train. It really needed to be savoured. Oh well. Tomorrow the tourist trap that is Land’s End.