It has been a quiet couple of weeks here in Truro since our trip to Italy. John and I have both been busy working and just getting back into the day-to-day routine of things. Yet with this weekend being a four day weekend here in England (bank holidays for both Good Friday and Easter Monday), John and I both had off work and decided it would be a good time to try renting a car for a couple of days. So far we have had no problems using public transportation to get where we need to go, but we have heard about multiple places in Cornwall as “must visits” that are mostly accessible by car. So we took the plunge and decided to give it a try!
We picked up our rental car from the rail station on Thursday after work and decided to spend some time just getting used to driving on the “other side of the road” around the Truro area. John started off driving our little four door and found that he got used to driving pretty quickly, though it did take some practice getting used to the roundabouts! As we knew we had a full couple of days ahead of us, we called it a night and spent the rest of the night figuring out where in Cornwall we wanted to visit.
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| First time we haven't had to carry our groceries home! |
We decided to spend Friday exploring the two southern peninsulas of Cornwall: The Lizard and Land’s End. We made our way to a tiny fishing village called Cadgwith first thing in the morning. As it was a bank holiday and many people were home for the day, the little village was very serene and we just walked around the small beach and up onto the cliffs along the coastal path. After some hiking, we headed back through town and got some Cornish ice cream cones before hitting the road.
We then made our way to Kynance Cove, which is also a beach spot in The Lizard. We parked the car and made our way down a trail to a beautiful cove where there were families spending the holiday on the beach making sand castles, playing in the water and just relaxing. We ended up eating lunch outside at a beach café overlooking Kynance Cove and just enjoyed people watching for a while before moving on.
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| Kynance Cove |
From there we decided to make our way to Land’s End and drive through some coastal towns along the way. At this point, John was very comfortable driving and started the journey through Newlyn and Mousehole. This is when we got our first of many tastes of the much talked about “Cornish” driving. Mousehole was, as its’ name implies, a tiny maze of roads throughout the village. There were many moments of disbelief that our GPS was actually taking us through these roads that you wouldn’t expect would be on a map. They were extremely narrow and typically only fit one vehicle (very small vehicle at that!). It was a driving challenge for John, but he did a great job with it!
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| Lunch overlooking Kynance Cove |
At this point in the afternoon (and for the rest of the day), the English weather set in and it began to rain. We made our way to Land’s End where on a clear day you can see the Isles of Scilly. It was definitely not a clear afternoon, so we didn’t see much and headed for Sennen Cove for our last stop of the day. During our time at Sennen Cove it was downpouring so we enjoyed the beach through the car windows. It looked to be a gorgeous beach so we will have to make a point to visit again on a sunny day. From there we decided to call it a day and head back to Truro for the night.
Saturday was our last day with the car so I decided it was now or never to try driving in England. I found that it didn’t take long to adjust to driving on the other side of the road and I enjoyed being behind the wheel again. Though once we got closer to our first destination of the day and the roads began to get more and more narrow, I did tend to get a bit anxious. But we made it in one piece to our day exploring the northern coast, starting with Tintagel Castle. The background of the Tintagel Castle ruins is that it is believed King Arthur once ruled from this castle mounted on a set of cliffs overlooking the sea. Once we hiked our way to the top of this cliff and through the castle ruins, we couldn’t believe how amazing the views were! It was literally breathtaking. We spent some time wandering around the cliffs and made a point to just sit and take it all in--definitely a good way to start our day.
We had heard about this cute village called Padstow, so we hopped back into the car (with John driving) and started a driving experience like no other. We drove the main way to Padstow which was miles and miles of truly Cornish roads. The roads were barely big enough for one small car, just imagine what it was like when two cars met! There were multiple times that John would be pulled over and had our car in the hedges while the oncoming car would have to open their windows so we could look out our window and let them know if they were going to hit us or not. There were many moments of reversing back until there was a wider part of the road so the oncoming car could barely squeeze by. Let’s just say “Cautious Katie” was out in full force during this time! But John handled both Cautious Katie and driving under these crazy conditions very well!
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| Tintagel Castle |
Padstown was a much busier fishing village with lots of shops and cafes. We had some lunch of fish and chips and a Cornish pasty and then made our way to Padstow’s beach for an afternoon walk. The sun was out and we enjoyed spending some time by the water and on the sand. By this point in the day, we were exhausted and decided to head back to Truro and call it a day. Before dropping off the car at the rental station, we had to stop and fill the tank up with petrol. We had only gone through a quarter of a tank of fuel but it cost £32!!!! Gas prices here are around £6 a gallon, which depending on exchange rate, works out to be about $9 to $10 a gallon. Even though gas prices in the States currently are considered high, we realized how lucky we are in the States to have access to such cheap fuel compared to other parts of the world!
After a busy couple of days, we have decided to take it easy for the rest of our weekend. We took a stroll through town earlier today and have now spent the rest of the afternoon eating breakfast and hanging out on our deck in the sun. Since we can’t spend Easter with our families, this is a pretty enjoyable second option :-)
We decided to spend Friday exploring the two southern peninsulas of Cornwall: The Lizard and Land’s End. We made our way to a tiny fishing village called Cadgwith first thing in the morning. As it was a bank holiday and many people were home for the day, the little village was very serene and we just walked around the small beach and up onto the cliffs along the coastal path. After some hiking, we headed back through town and got some Cornish ice cream cones before hitting the road. 
Saturday was our last day with the car so I decided it was now or never to try driving in England. I found that it didn’t take long to adjust to driving on the other side of the road and I enjoyed being behind the wheel again. Though once we got closer to our first destination of the day and the roads began to get more and more narrow, I did tend to get a bit anxious. But we made it in one piece to our day exploring the northern coast, starting with Tintagel Castle. The background of the Tintagel Castle ruins is that it is believed King Arthur once ruled from this castle mounted on a set of cliffs overlooking the sea. Once we hiked our way to the top of this cliff and through the castle ruins, we couldn’t believe how amazing the views were! It was literally breathtaking. We spent some time wandering around the cliffs and made a point to just sit and take it all in--definitely a good way to start our day. 
We had heard about this cute village called Padstow, so we hopped back into the car (with John driving) and started a driving experience like no other. We drove the main way to Padstow which was miles and miles of truly Cornish roads. The roads were barely big enough for one small car, just imagine what it was like when two cars met! There were multiple times that John would be pulled over and had our car in the hedges while the oncoming car would have to open their windows so we could look out our window and let them know if they were going to hit us or not. There were many moments of reversing back until there was a wider part of the road so the oncoming car could barely squeeze by. Let’s just say “Cautious Katie” was out in full force during this time! But John handled both Cautious Katie and driving under these crazy conditions very well!
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