In early November last year on a beautiful blustery, sharp, not to mention cold, day Tintagel in Cornwall was a great place to be. And that's where William and I along with Maureen and Jerry were lucky enough to find ourselves.
We had all stayed in Wadebridge, Cornwall for a week the previous autumn and here we were again for another week. Wanting to find different places to visit Tintagel was high on the recommended list of places to go. This was the first visit for all of us and we loved the place.
The paths which lead to Tintagel Castle are down at the bottom of the village and taking the higher of the two paths Maureen, Jerry and I braved the elements to reach the cliff top and feast our eyes on Tintagel Castle and the coastline surrounding it. William had stayed in the village, he didn't feel up to the climb that day.
Here we had reached the end of the path and were practically being blown away by the high winds. You can see from the big smiles on our faces that the elements were not bothering us one little bit.
From our vantage point we looked down the many, steep wooden steps clinging to the rock side, to the bridge crossing the deep ravine...
and then on up the steps on the other side to the castle. Actually it's the castle remains that are visible today but steeped in history the spot is mesmerising. "Tintagel Castle is a medieval fortification built in the 13th century". I quoted from Wikipedia there.
And nothing if not rugged.
On the way back to the village now and a view of the lower path which we joined to take us back up to the village.
Tintagel village is interesting. This is the Old Post Office, a building which dates back to the 14th century and since 1903 has been owned by the National Trust.
There's a very good visitor centre up at the top end of the village too where we spent some time reading up on the history of the castle and the surrounding area. A little something I now remember from the visitor centre was a little note in the visitor's comments book. An American couple had signed the book, nothing out of the ordinary there but it made us smile when after the comment was a little note saying "Sorry world I didn't vote for him!" and her husband had written "I'm sorry too. I didn't vote for him either".
So, yes, we definitely enjoyed our visit to Tintagel and would certainly go again.
