Saturday 12 November 2016

Cornwall 2016 - Port Isaac

One of the places high on the list of places to visit for Maureen and Jerry, Jerry probably more than Maureen, was Port Isaac.  Port Isaac being the location for television's Doc Martin series and Doc Martin is one of their favourite programmes.  So, when Port Isaac was only fifteen minutes away from where we were staying there was no reason not to pop over and take a look.  


The car park for Port Isaac is way up on the cliff tops and on the walk down to the village magnificent views of the coast line, like this one, immediately come into view and just demand that you stand and marvel at such natural beauty.


Walking on down to the village it's hard not to stop and marvel too at all the immaculately kept, higgledy piggledy cottages.


Making our way down to the village centre we detoured up, down, around, in and between the side streets.


Seeing peculiar shaped houses like this one.  Attractive, but peculiar all the same.


We were able to look down across the rooftops, all cheek by jowl with their neighbours.  Town planning, regulations and bye-laws obviously weren't an issue when this town came into being.


Finally arriving in the village centre at the Lifeboat Station.  All lifeboatmen and women in the UK are volunteers.  Their main aim is to save lives at sea.  Everything they do, which includes putting their own lives at risk, is done out of the goodness of their hearts and not to pad out bank balances.  The Royal National Lifeboat Institute is a charity run on donations only with no help from the government.  It''s incredible isn't it that such an amazing organisation is self supporting?  Follow the link to read more about them.


From the lifeboat station it's just a short walk uphill to Fern Cottage which may be better known to lovers of Doc Martin  as Dr Ellingham's surgery.   Here Jerry is taking a look in the window.  It was okay, there was nobody at home.  The cottage is a holiday let and there's an information notice in the window for people to read.


Now Billy is playing "nosy parker" while Jerry admires the view across the bay in front of the house.  He's seen that house and view so many times on the television screen in his living room thousands of miles away on the other side of the Atlantic and now here he is standing right in front of it. Unreal, eh?


Tourists being tourists.  After all, that's what holidays are all about.


And this is the view in front of Fern Cottage, usually minus this happy pair of tourists.


You can imagine after all that wandering up hill and down dale through this lovely little Cornish village it was only fitting that we stopped in a cafe, just a couple of houses down from Fern Cottage, for a Cornish Cream Tea and a rest.


After which it was time to wander back up those hills and spy more quaint cottages along the way.

And step out of the way of the odd car bravely driving through the narrowest of roads!



A last look at the harbour as we climb higher up away from the village centre to the cliff top car park. 


Now this house really is something special.  I love its perfect symmetry.   See the plantation shutters in the downstairs windows?  William has an obsession with them at the minute.  He points them out everywhere we go!


One last snap before we reached the car park.  I couldn't resist this one with the seagull proudly sitting there.


The day wasn't over yet though.  We called in at Padstow for fish and chips from Chip Ahoy chippy ...


.. and ate them sitting on a bench overlooking the quiet and peaceful harbour.  October, with its lack of crowds, is definitely a good time to visit this very popular corner of England.


Eating fish and chips makes you thirsty so we popped into The London Inn again for a cold drink and a relaxing hour or so to finish off the day. 


Nighttime had fallen while we were snug in the pub and there was a chill in the air now.  Another photo ..



... or two and it was back to the ranch to batten down the hatches, while the night away with a game of Rummikub, a drink or two and intermittently watch the news which consisted mainly of the American Election palaver.  It wasn't yet certain who was going to be king or queen of the White House but one thing was certain - we four had had a brilliant day!

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