Looe

A beautiful day exploring Cornwall. We headed off after breakfast on our 90 minute drive to St Ives. It was a beautiful sunny morning and the drive was lovely, especially once we left the motorway and were on the very narrow country roads. The overhanging trees formed tunnels for us to drive through and the dappled light through them made them even more spectacular. St Ives was the first of three seaside towns we visited and all were quite different. It was the biggest and many tourists and their dogs were out on the lovely sandy beach, enjoying the sun. We spent about an hour wandering around and wished we could have longer. Our next stop, Padstow, was 30 minutes away. A wrong turn meant we weren’t following our original route and instead took us down some incredibly narrow and rustic roads, definitely not designed for cars. We were grateful not to meet any! We had booked lunch for 1pm at Rick Stein’s Seafood Restaurant. It was a real (expensive) treat. The food and service were outstanding and the atmosphere in the restaurant busy, but relaxed. My Indonesian Seafood Curry and David’s Dover Sole were both divine and the starter and main were totally enough. We left the restaurant to stroll around the lovely harbour, which was much smaller and quieter than St Ives. Again there were dogs everywhere, all very well behaved. We even noticed a shop with a dish of water at the door which said “ dog pub” ! We cannot believe how many people have dogs in England and how well trained they are. As well everywhere including pubs and shops is dog friendly and they are simply everywhere. After leaving Padstow we carried on for 30 minutes to Port Isaac. The parking was at the top of the cliffs and we set off walking down the steep streets towards the harbour. It really was a wow! moment seeing the harbour for the first time from up on the cliff. It was so beautiful. As we headed down we stopped in at a very cute little cafe for a coffee. We realised we were actually in one of the Doc Martin locations which was confirmed by the Doc Martin brochure and map on the table. We got chatting to the owner who was able to tell us that doc Martin is filmed in Port Isaac every year for 16 weeks at a time and that she herself had been an extra. All very interesting and her photos of the filming were around the walls. We carried on down to the harbour where we were able to locate several more locations and where we took many photos as it was all so beautiful and interesting. We returned with a steep climb back up to the car park, feeling we had really walked off our lunch. The drive back to Looe was an hour, again very scenic. We called in at the oldest pub for a drink before returning to the cottage and eating some left overs for dinner. A wonderful day out.Read more