Whilst Sam and I are currently in America, I wanted to harken back to a trip that we took to a family reunion of sorts. Sam’s dad and step-mum planned a big get-together in Penzance, Cornwall that we knew about around a year ahead of time. We knew that we wouldn’t be able to take little Harold with us, but we were excited to get some road-trip time in just as a twosome again.
We both took off work on the Friday and hopped in the car and left immediately after work on the Thursday. For those of you who are slightly unaware, York to Penzance is a very long drive so we planned to break it up with a stopover for the night in Bristol. We got caught in a horrendous rainstorm on the way to Bristol and didn’t end up getting to our hotel till nearly 1 am. Then we got up Friday morning to get to Penzance bright and early and for all the family festivities to begin.
We were reasonably lucky that we caught the sunshine nearly the whole weekend, though my photos make it look deceptively warm. I still didn’t fancy a dip in the sea (I brought my swimsuit, just in case!) but I did end up going in up to my knees.
The weekend was mostly filled with family events and meals, which were all exceedingly lovely; though it left us very little time to play tourist. The one thing that I definitely wanted to do whilst we were in Penzance was walk out to St Michael’s Mount at low tide and explore it. Luckily the whole gang was up for it and we trouped out together.
St Michael’s Mount is a small tidal island in Mount’s Bay, with a castle and chapel belonging to the St Aubyn family that is now managed by the National Trust. It’s a fascinating site to visit, and I couldn’t recommend it more highly!
I also recommend exploring the little village of Marazion (which is the one closest to St Michael’s Mount) as it is slightly more quaint and picturesque than Penzance itself, but Penzance offers far more affordable and plentiful accommodation options.
We left early Sunday morning to make the entire drive back to York so that we could be bright-eyed for work on Monday morning and the drive wasn’t nearly as terrible as we feared. (Definitely not for me at least – I got to be a passenger the whole way. I supposed I shouldn’t speak for my driver, Sam.) We listened to many an episode of “My Favourite Murder” on the way back home and ate our body weights in fizzy sweets and McDonald’s french fries.
The Cornish coast was absolutely stunning and I can’t wait to go back and explore it in more depth one day soon. Sam would like to return to do some surfing so hopefully our return will be in the not-so-distant future.
The coast was gorgeous but the real hero of the weekend is Sam for driving all that way and for putting up with my endless Pirates of Penzance jokes.
Have you ever visited Penzance?
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