St. Mary's church on the left and Chapel House, in brick, on the right, our window is the top one. The church site is the location of the oldest church in the region with remnants remaining in the church yard.
St. Ives rises up a steep hill from the water. We parked at the top in a big lot and walked down to the center. There are row houses, narrow twisting streets, old stone buildings, churches, the waterfront, a farmers market and a big boathouse for the rescue boat. They go out in the worst weather and storms to rescue ships in distress.
Looking down on St. Ives from the top of the hill.
Chimney pots, the Celtic Sea and St. Ives harbor.
The Three Ferrets pub.
Ruddy turnstone at the waterfront along with lots of herring gulls.
Typical stone Cornish church with square tower.
Weather vane atop the boathouse.
After St. Ives we headed west on the coastal road looking for Gurnards Head in Zennor. The road is sometimes as wide as two lanes, sometimes not, very curvy and up and down over ridges and valleys. It gets narrow when it wends its way through farms. All the farm buildings are stone and packed together amid the fields and pastures. There was also moorland with granite outcrops and yellow gorse and wild flowers. We had lunch at the Gurnards Head Hotel after a walk down to the headland through cow pastures and over stiles.
Moors, pasture and fields, and ocean on a hazy day.
The Gurnards Hotel.
Stiles let humans cross fence lines but not cows.
Trees show where the prevailing wind comes from, the west.
Gurnards Head, that tiny pink dot is a hiker.
Then it was back on narrow winding, winding road past moors, ocean, stone farms, to St. Just and to Lands End, the westernmost point of Britian.
The center of St. Just with a stone pub in front of a stone church.
Moving on we passed through a tiny town, Crows An Wra, with a old old Celtic cross and stone road sign on our way to Carn Euny. Carn Euny is a Neolithic to Iron Age settlement ruin. There are large circles of stone and sod, maybe six, that were covered with thatched roofs. The circles are all about four feet high. There is an old well. The whole site is about two acres. Access is by a footpath through the woods after a long drive down a one-lane road, two-way, but one lane. The road runs through crossroad towns and farms.
Crows An Wra with old road sign, new road sign and old Celtic cross.
Fox weather vane on an old farm building.
Old farm. That slate rood needs work. The road is part of the farm.
Carn Euny has circles made of stone and sod that were the walls of stone age houses.
Here's the road to Carn Euny.
We went through Newlyn and Mouse Hole on the way back to back to Penzance.
Low tide at Mouse Hole. Cornwall has a big tidal excursion.
We had dinner, after our naps, at Shore restaurant, which was excellent, followed by a little more walking around Penzance.
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