As the lockdown (which was nearly a year long) started to ease in the UK, I decided to take break and visit the beach town of St. Ives in Cornwall. I expected this town with its tiny population of only about 12,000 people to be a quiet and laid back.
But boy was I wrong! Read on and you might agree with me :)
This was meant to be a 3-day trip (Saturday through Monday) including travel. London to St Ives is about a 5-hour drive. Two of us started at 8:30 am on a fine Saturday. The drive was pretty smooth and kept getting scenic with every passing mile.
We reached our pre-booked AirBnB by 2 pm. Our accommodation was a small carved out section of our host’s house converted into a very comfortable and convenient room. Its door opened to an unmanicured, almost vintage looking garden with rustic benches and great views of the town.
While driving into the town, one could see the endless blue glistering Atlantic Ocean and this instantly encouraged me to make most of the remaining day. After a quick fresh up, we walked up to the sea promenade to start our holiday with a relaxing lunch.
Since only outdoor dining was open in England at the time, we had to queue up for around 45 minutes before getting our table at ‘The Hub’ for Burgers and cocktails. I wasn’t expecting much but the burgers simply blew my mind. Fluffy light burger buns, Crispy bacon, perfectly fried chicken and insane toppings – you get the gist :)
By the time lunch got over, it was already 5 pm and the ocean had already receded into low tide, and yet, the views were magical.
We spent rest of the evening walking along the promenade, soaking up the atmosphere. What really stood out for me was that St. Ives is an incredibly pet friendly vacation destination. All cafes, restaurants, Bed & Breakfasts, hotels and beaches have full pet access. There wasn’t any place where we did not see dogs vacationing with their owners.
The promenade is also lined with cute little cafes, fish shops and studios hosting artwork and crafts from local artisans – everything that you’d expect from a quaint beach town.
St. Ives also has quite a bustling art centre. It has a branch of the iconic Tate gallery and is home to a number of famous artists. The St.Ives school of painting will surely inspire the artist in you, should you decide to take up any of their holiday offerings or workshops.
After a really tiring day and a good night sleep, we woke up early next day to make the most of a sunny St. Ives, and experience the ocean in all its grandeur.
Walking up to Porthmeor beach early morning, we were greeted by beach joggers and groups of people practicing yoga with beach waves as background music. How blissful !
Porthmeor beach is north west facing, half mile stretch overlooking the Tate Gallery. It is sheltered from the strongest winds and is quite popular with surfers. Needless to say, we enquired with St. Ives Surf school, which offers surf lessons and a host of other activities including coasteering, Paddle boarding and Kayaking.
Luckily, the weather on Sunday was perfect and we booked a 2-hour long surf lesson for that afternoon. The surf school provides well fitted wet suits and boots equipping you to make the most of your surfing experience even when the water is freezing cold!
We were in a group of 6 people from different parts of UK, very excited to go through our lesson. I, for one, was going to surf for the first time.Our instructor took cognisance of this fact and made sure I understand the all the basics and can follow through the lesson with ease.
Essentially, the lesson was divided into two halves. The first half involved learning how to catch the waves and glide through to the shore. During the second half, we were taught techniques to stand on the surfboard on the waves.
Everything was explained on the beach front and we could then use this knowledge to surf in the waters! Very exciting! But to my dismay I could barely stand up on waves and had very many falls from my surfboard. But hey, it was my first time and there is nothing to say that I might not become a surfing expert in good time (empty exaggerations much?).
All in all, it was a great experience, and I will surely come back as a determined student ready to master the craft.
Although surfing was the highlight of the day, we did manage to squeeze in another fabulous leisurely experience. A seal boat ride.
Boat ride into the ocean with a possibly to see seals in wild was something we could not miss.
The ride took us further into the blue waters surrounded by hiker friendly cliffs. It was surreal and reminded me of a similar ride, I took a couple of years back in the Mediterranean Sea in south of Italy. We rode for about 30 minutes to a rock island, popular for seal sighting.
Not only did we see white seals but also leopard seals popping their heads out of the water to get sun. There were many white seals at a distance, but a particular leopard seal was quite close to our boat and seemed completely unhinged by our presence. This was such a great experience and successfully checked off my bucket list.
Our tour guide informed us that in one of his previous rounds, not too long before ours, he saw three seals resting on the rocks. But this time they were in water, because a jet ski had just trailed past them. Shucks!
Nevertheless, it was surely an experience of a lifetime.
The next day, the weather gods were not as kind as they had been for the past two days.
Everyone had told us that this day was not going to be particularly eventful as the weather had taken a turn for the worst. Extremely windy and cold – quintessential English weather had sprung upon us. All water activities had been suspended for the day.
So, it only made sense to grab some traditional Cornish pastry and Ice-cream sold by fantastic family run outlets before heading back to London.
As we started driving away from St. Ives towards London, we saw advertisements of many activity centres offering activities like power kiting and quad biking. Pursuing any one (or more than one) of these activities could have been a great end to our short trip but alas, this time the weather played spoilt sport.
Nonetheless, we covered quite a lot for a three-day trip during a time when UK had opened up only partially. Will definitely be coming back for sun, sand, surf and much more!
