Escaping the City in Cornwall

I’ve become one of those people who says things like, “I need to get out of the city and see the countryside to relax.”

I don’t know if this is a side effect of getting older or just a side effect of living in a city where I’m pushed up awkwardly into someone’s crotch on public transportation more often than I’d like.

Whatever the reason, last weekend I just needed to escape London’s chaotic charm for something a little more relaxed. For my sanity. Luckily, about a month ago I’d planned an escape to Cornwall, the westernmost county in England with a very long coastline. I rented an adorable apartment with four of my girlfriends in the town of Padstow with the aim of enjoying the sea, eating well, and drinking in cozy pubs.

We drove down from London on Friday afternoon, five of us packed into a rather small VW Golf while singing the words to the greatest hits of the 1990s and admiring the sun setting over the emerald green English countryside. When we arrived nearly six hours later we were ready for a night out on the town, er village.

After a few Bloody Marys (and glasses of Prosecco…and red wine) we began the hunt for a local watering hole. It turns out that Padstow is pretty dead on a Friday night in mid-November. We ended up in a small pub, which we were told was one of the two true traditional Cornish pubs left in Padstow, called The London Inn. The wine was cheap and the beer was local. All we needed.

At 11:30 we were ushered out of the pub (small town hours).

This is where things get weird. A woman who we’d first met when we walked into the pub invited us to go on a ghost tour led by her and a toothless male companion. Being drunk and stupid we said yes, and then followed two strangers into a cemetery. I mostly stood to the side, ready to run at a moment’s notice, and listened as they regaled us with stories of dead seamen and spirits coming back to haunt us should we walk the wrong way around a grave stone. They may have been crazy. They may have been taking the piss out of some drunk out of towners. Either way, we are still alive.

The next morning we woke up to grey skies and hangovers. We all decided that the only way to get on with the day was to start it with a heaping pile of freshly fried fish and chips doused in vinegar. Unfortunately, the restaurant didn’t open until noon (and unfortunately for you dear readers, you’ll have to wait until next week to read about our lunch), so we killed some time at the National Lobster Hatchery. Dedicated to research and conservation efforts related to the European lobster, this charity has a cute visitor center with a lot of information about the species and some lobster varieties you are sure to have never seen before.

After lunch we had about 3 hours of daylight left (it gets dark here at about 4:00, lest you think we rolled out of bed very late) so we walked over to Padstow’s main beach so we could lie on the rocks, drink cider, and take a really horrible series of portraits using my 50 mm fixed lens. Oh, and enjoy the view. Because England is really, really pretty.

We’d sufficiently worked up an appetite at this point so we decided to grab some pasties on the way back to the apartment. Cornish pasties have Protected Geographical Indication in Europe, similar to Parmigiano Reggiano, meaning it has traditionally been manufactured in Cornwall and has unique properties because of this. There are Cornish pasty shops all over London, but I wanted my first to be in Cornwall. I went traditional- pastry filled with beef, potatoes, turnip, and onion and then baked into what could be referred to as a portable pot pie. It was heavy, fitting as people used to eat them in the mines, but delicious.

We called it an early night and the next morning decided to explore the area a little further. Our first stop was Polzeath, a beach town popular with surfers about 15 miles from Padstow. Even though it was bitterly cold and windy, the water was filled with surfers in wet suits catching some pretty serious waves. The tide was out when we arrived which left us plenty of space to run around and take stupid jumping photos.

Our next stop was Port Isaac. This small fishing village is located about 6 miles from Polzeath and is a lovely small town that reminded me a lot of Maine. We walked down to the harbor, admired cows grazing atop a hill, and warmed up with a pot of tea at one of the few places open on a Sunday.

Escaping London for Cornwall was exactly what I needed. Not only did it make going back to cramped London seem bearable, but it also made me remember how much I like to travel. How nice it can be to just explore a place with my camera in hand, eat new things, and not have to worry about anything else for just a couple of days.

Oh, and how nice it is to travel when it’s not 8,000 degrees. (Southeast Asia, I’m looking at you.)