Scotland rewards people who go looking for more than the postcard version, and while Edinburgh Castle and the Royal Mile are fine for a first afternoon, the west coast has enough packed into it to fill a full week without ever doubling back on yourself. Most of what follows is built around Glasgow and the stretch of country just beyond it, since that's where the variety really opens up. Loch Lomond and the Trossachs Glasgow makes a good base partly because Loch Lomond sits under an hour away, and Balloch, right on the water, is the easiest place to pick up a boat trip, whether that means a short cruise or hiring something smaller to drive yourself. If staying on dry land suits better, the West Highland Way runs along part of the loch's eastern shore, and you don't need to commit to the whole route to get a decent stretch of walking in before lunch. North of the loch, the Trossachs pack in far more hill country than you'd expect given how close they sit to the city. Most people aim for Ben Lomond, a climb that's solid without tipping into anything technical, and the reward at the top is a proper view back down over the water. Aberfoyle and Callander both work well as stops along the way, particularly if you're looping the area by car rather than walking it end to end. Isle of Bute and the Cowal Peninsula Fewer visitors make it out to Bute, which is exactly why it's worth the effort. There are three ferry routes that take you to Bute but give the Colintraive to Rhubodach crossing a try. The drive down through the Cowal Peninsula beforehand is a winding journey that's a delight. Once you arrive at Colintraive the ferry is literally 5 minutes and you’re on the island. Rothesay is the main town on the island and still has a Victorian pier and seafront that locals actually use rather than something kept purely for visitors. There's also a restored Victorian toilet block down on the harbour that sounds like a strange recommendation until you see it. A short drive from the town brings you to Mount Stuart, a Gothic Revival house heavy on stained glass and astrological detail, and not remotely what you'd expect to stumble across on a small Scottish island if you hadn't looked it up beforehand. Beer in Glasgow Whisky tends to dominate any conversation about Scottish drink, but Glasgow has its own long relationship with beer, and Tennent's sits right at the centre of it, having been brewed in the city for generations until its red T logo became about as recognisable locally as any football crest. Tennent's runs masterclasses at the brewery itself, taking small groups through different beer styles and explaining what actually separates a decent pint from a great one rather than just pouring samples and moving on. The session runs a few hours, pairs well with a wander round the surrounding East End afterwards, and makes a solid change of pace once you've already ticked off a whisky distillery tour or two. The Rest of the City Beyond the brewery, Glasgow's West End rewards a slow half-day on its own terms. The Kelvingrove Art Gallery is free to get into and holds one of the better collections outside London, while Ashton Lane nearby is compact enough to walk end to end in a few minutes yet still manages to pack in more decent places to eat than the size would suggest. Down by the Clyde, the Riverside Museum covers the city's shipbuilding history with enough old trains and cars scattered through it to hold most people's attention well past the point they'd planned to leave. If the timing works out, the Barrowland Ballroom is worth checking regardless of who happens to be playing, since it remains one of the more atmospheric music venues in the UK, complete with a sprung dance floor that's been there since the 1930s. Getting Further Out Anyone with an extra day or two might push on to Oban, roughly two and a half hours from Glasgow and a good note to end the trip on. It's a proper working fishing town with a seafood shack down by the harbour that outperforms most of the sit-down restaurants nearby, and it also happens to be the main ferry point for Mull and several of the smaller islands, should you decide to keep going rather than turn back. None of this needs a strict itinerary behind it. Glasgow and the coast around it sit close enough together that the days can take shape as you go, mixing a hill walk with a brewery visit and a ferry crossing without much planning required at all. Motoring in Scotland is a delight

Lyme Regis from the sea There are places which you visit and there are places which gradually get under your skin. Lyme Regis on the Jurassic Coast in West Dorset belongs firmly in the second category. I have been coming here for years, sometimes on journalistic duty, sometimes to walk, sometimes to eat, sometimes to go fishing and occasionally simply because I happened to be passing and decided that the sea looked too inviting to ignore. And the more I discover about Lyme and the countryside around it, the more I realise that this is not simply a seaside town. It is a sort of geographical hinge. To the west lie the great hills and combes of Devon, with Beer, Branscombe, Seaton and the extraordinary Undercliff stretching away towards Axmouth. Inland, the high green ridges of Dorset roll towards Beaminster, Pilsdon Pen and Lambert’s Castle. To the east are Charmouth, Golden Cap and the great landslipping coastline which eventually leads towards Bridport and beyond. And underneath the lot is geology which is forever up to something. The cliffs fall down. Hillsides move. Streams change direction. Fossils emerge from the beach. Paths disappear into the sea. It is, in other words, exactly my sort of place. Lyme Regis beach at low tide, looking east into Dorset Lyme Regis: the seaside town where nothing is quite as it seems Lyme has a slightly curious habit of appearing to be one thing while actually being something entirely different. Take the famous Cobb. It looks as though it has been standing there since the beginning of time, which is not far wrong: there are records of the structure dating back to 1294. Its great curved wall was designed by people who understood waves rather better than most modern engineers, while the older stones were laid upright to give the structure additional strength. Lyme Regis Cobb and harbour And yet The Cobb has also been a film set, a fishing harbour, a working port and the backdrop to countless family holidays. You may even think you have seen Meryl Streep standing out there in a storm in The French Lieutenant’s Woman. You haven't. Well, you have – sort of. The bottom of the town - Lyme Regis I once asked a local about it and received the sort of answer that illustrates the particular humour of Lyme Regis rather well. Depending on who you believe, the figure out there was an art director, a local fireman or somebody else entirely dressed as the famous actress. This is Lyme: nothing is quite as it seems. The same applies to the beach. Much of the attractive sand and shingle that now makes the seafront such a pleasant place to sit is there because of a massive programme of coastal engineering. Lyme has spent centuries fighting a battle with the sea and, rather more alarmingly, with the unstable land beneath its feet. The town's cliffs are made up of layers of materials which have an unfortunate tendency to slide over one another. Add rain, gravity and a sea that is constantly nibbling away at the bottom of the cliffs and you have a landscape which is never entirely certain where it is going to be tomorrow. This is one reason I love walking around here. You are not simply walking through scenery. You are walking through a landscape in the process of becoming something else. Oysters served in Lyme Regis The Cobb, fishing and the taste of Lyme Bay There is another Lyme which exists beyond the holiday brochures. It is the working seaside town. I once spent a wonderful day going mackerel fishing out of the harbour with the late photographer Richard Austin and local skipper Harry May. The idea was wonderfully simple: go out to sea, catch some fish and bring them back for lunch. The boats were full of holidaymakers, many of whom regarded the annual mackerel trip as an essential part of their visit. Harry told me that some families had been coming back for years. And I can understand why. Mackerel fishing with Harry May (centre), Lyme Regis There is something deeply satisfying about catching your own lunch, particularly when that lunch is a mackerel which was swimming around Lyme Bay a few minutes earlier. We eventually took our fish to Monmouth Beach, gutted them standing knee-deep in the sea and put them over a barbecue. Fresh mackerel needs very little interference. A squeeze of lemon, perhaps some salt and pepper – and a hot barbecue. That is about it. You can read the full story of that extraordinary day in my article Mackerel Fishing in Devon. Barbecuing mackerel in Lyme Regis with Richard Austin Walking from Lyme Regis If you come here with walking boots rather than buckets and spades, you are entering a much larger world. One of my favourite things about this part of Dorset and Devon is the way the coast and countryside fit together. You can leave Lyme Regis and, within a surprisingly short distance, be climbing through ancient countryside, crossing high ridges, looking down upon landslips or wandering through villages which seem to belong to another century. There are plenty of possibilities. One of the most obvious is the walk towards Charmouth, although anyone following old walking material needs to be careful because the coast is continually changing and sections of the old route have disappeared through erosion. I discovered that the hard way. Charmouth beach looking west toward Lyme Regis A map I was carrying showed a perfectly respectable path. Unfortunately, the land upon which the path had once existed had decided to become seabed. The result was one of those walks which began as a pleasant outing and ended with my phoning the photographer who had recommended it and asking him to come and rescue us. My more recent guide to Jurassic Coast Walks: 5 Great Routes in Dorset and East Devon contains the current version of this story, along with other walks around Golden Cap, Charmouth and the surrounding coast. The important thing here is to follow current signs and diversions rather than relying on an old map or an old newspaper article. The cliffs don't read newspapers. Golden Cap and the great West Dorset landscape Walk east from Lyme and eventually you encounter Golden Cap, the great golden-topped hill which rises above the Jurassic Coast. It is the highest point on the English south coast and one of those places where the geography suddenly makes sense. Massive Golden Cap rises on the West Dorset coast From the heights you can look back towards Lyme Regis, across the immense broken landscape of the Jurassic Coast and inland towards the great Dorset ridges. Golden Cap is not an easy little stroll from sea level. It is a proper climb. But this is high country with a difference. You don't have to spend your entire day staring at the next stile. Once you gain height, enormous panoramas open out across Dorset. The landscape around here is also a wonderful illustration of the fact that the Jurassic Coast is not a static geological exhibit. It moves. The undercliffs are essentially great natural landslides which have become colonised by trees, shrubs and wildlife. In places the cliffs look almost like giant green steps descending towards the sea. You can read more about this extraordinary coastline in my Jurassic Coast Walks guide. View looking east from the top of Golden Cap The great Dorset ridges The countryside immediately inland from Lyme is equally rewarding. One of the finest walks I have ever done as a newspaper walking writer took me across the great ridge country between Beaminster and Lyme Regis. I walked with my old friend, the poet James Crowden, and poet Catherine Simmonds, and for much of the day it felt as though I had somehow wandered into a landscape populated by poets living and dead. This is the Wessex Ridgeway country: Gerrard's Hill, Lewesdon Hill, Pilsdon Pen, Lambert's Castle and the green valleys which eventually funnel you towards Lyme. It is big walking country. You climb a hill and discover another hill beyond it. You cross a ridge and find another ridge waiting in the distance. Eventually the whole thing begins to make sense as a giant geographical jigsaw. Walks writer Martin Hesp on Lambert's Castle Hill, Dorset I wrote about that long journey in The Great Dorset Ridge Walk. I have also written more recently about the way Dorset's chalk ridges and literary associations became woven into my own rather peculiar childhood relationship with the county in Exploring Dorset: A Journey Through Chalk Ridges and Literary Landscapes. Lambert's Castle and the world behind Lyme One of my favourite walks in the area takes you up to Lambert's Castle, high above Marshwood Vale. There is an Iron Age hill fort up there, magnificent views across Dorset and a fascinating history which includes an old racecourse and the remarkable semaphore communication system which once linked Plymouth and London. But my reason for going there was literary. Walker on Lambert's Castle Hill looking north towards Dorset ridges I had been rereading Geoffrey Household's Rogue Male, the wonderful 1930s thriller in which an English sportsman goes to ground after attempting to assassinate a Hitler-like European dictator. Robert Macfarlane had written about trying to identify the landscape which inspired the book, and so my poet friend James Crowden and I set off to explore it. The walk took us around Lambert's Castle and Coney's Castle, with the English Channel appearing between the ridges. It is a particularly good example of what I like about walking around this part of Dorset. You can set off looking for a literary landscape and come home having discovered Iron Age archaeology, Napoleonic communications, old fairs, enormous views and a couple of castles. My full Lambert's Castle Hill walk is here on the site. Charmouth and the restless Jurassic Coast Just east of Lyme lies Charmouth, one of the most famous fossil-hunting beaches in Britain. But I am always slightly wary of describing this coast as though it were a museum. It isn't. It is alive. The beach at Charmouth, The cliffs are constantly eroding and the sea is continually revealing things which have been hidden for roughly 195 million years. On one visit I went walking from Charmouth and climbed towards the great landslip at Cain's Folly. From above, the scale of the collapse is extraordinary. Trees have taken root in the new landscape and what was once a solid hillside has become a sort of secret green valley. The geology is responsible for much of the character of the coast. Porous rocks sit above impervious clays and shales. Rain gets in, weight increases and eventually gravity wins. The result is an undercliff. And the result of the undercliff is one of the most unusual coastal landscapes in Britain. You can see much of this country on my Charmouth circular walk, which takes in Chardown Hill and Stonebarrow as well as the coast. Undercliffs in the making east of Charmouth West of Lyme: Beer, Branscombe and the Undercliff Turn west rather than east and you enter a very different world. The coastline between Lyme Regis and Axmouth is one of the great walking landscapes of southern England. Branscombe is particularly beautiful. I once set off from Branscombe Mouth intending to make a substantial circular walk through the Undercliff, Beer and around Beer Head. Even if you only have time for a shortened version, the Undercliff is worth experiencing. It is a strange place. The beach at Branscombe from a high vantage point A great mother-cliff has partially collapsed towards the sea and a second landscape has grown up between the two. Trees, shrubs and plants flourish in this humid, sheltered world. It wasn't always wilderness. People once farmed these slopes, growing early potatoes, broad beans, strawberries, daffodils, crocuses and tulips in the frost-free south-facing plots. Seaweed was carried up from the beach by donkey and used as fertiliser. It is difficult to imagine such an agricultural landscape when you walk through the jungle-like Undercliff today. But that's another reason this coast is so fascinating: landscapes change, and sometimes the old one survives only in stories. Driver and tram at the Seaton Tramway Seaton, Axmouth and the River Axe Further west lies Seaton, where the great natural drama of the coast gives way to the watery landscape of the Axe estuary. There are nature reserves, wetlands and the famous Seaton–Colyton Electric Tramway. I once walked from Seaton through the wetlands to Colyford with the local nature reserves manager James Chubb. We crossed boardwalks, looked into bird hides and explored the remarkable habitats around Black Hole Marsh before catching the tram back towards the coast. It is a gentler walk than many of the cliff-top routes around Lyme, but it reveals another side of East Devon. And then there is Axmouth. Today it looks like a tiny harbour, but once it was a significant port. Roman connections, Viking battles, royal armies and centuries of maritime trade have all passed through this narrow valley. The modern harbour remains an intriguing little place, squeezed between river, shingle and cliff. It is one of those places where you have to use your imagination. Bird hide view on Seaton Marches walk And then there is Beer... Beer deserves its own visit. It is one of my favourite little seaside places and has the unusual ability to appear vaguely Mediterranean when approached through the trees from the coast path. I once walked there from Shute via Colyton and the Seaton tramway, accompanied by my glamorous step-daughter. The pretty village of Beer from the sea We arrived in Beer hungry. Fortunately there was a café by the beach. It was November. We sat outside in shirt sleeves. My companion described the whole experience as “stunningly, surprisingly British”. I couldn't really argue. A corner of the West Country that keeps changing That, really, is what draws me back to Lyme Regis and the surrounding country. It is not simply the famous things. Not just The Cobb. The Cobb at Lyme Regis Not just fossils. Not just the Jurassic Coast. Not just Golden Cap. It is the way everything connects. The fishing town connects to the fossil beaches. The fossil beaches connect to the landslips. The landslips connect to the geology. The geology connects to the hills. The hills connect to Hardy, Household and the poets. The valleys connect to old ports and fishing villages. And the footpaths connect the lot. Some of them, admittedly, disappear. But there are always others. So this page is intended as a starting point for exploring the area through my own collection of walks, features and stories. I've spent decades wandering around this corner of the West Country and still find new pieces of the jigsaw. Perhaps that's the real attraction of Lyme Regis and West Dorset. You never quite finish discovering it. Golden Cap with Lyme Regis in the distance

A cold day in the UK recently reminded me of the time I drove up to Dawson City from Whitehorse - that’s a long six-hour adventure in the Yukon snow and ice, I can tell you. The Allure of Dawson City: Beyond the Gold Rush In winter Dawson City is fairly quiet, with a population of 800 - quiet, that is, unless it happens to be Yukon Quest week. Then the town goes a bit wild - and I followed suit, which is why I can't recall too much about it. Save, that is, for drinking the Sourtoe Cocktail which, alas, is a thing you have to do in Dawson. It is a real mummified toe which is kept in sea-salt and unwrapped for the ceremony - the barman reads some kind of proclamation and you knock back the vodka (or spirit of your choice) containing the toe, which must touch your lips at least once in order for you to be awarded a certificate. You can look up the legend online, I won't bother repeating the tale about the frostbitten gold miner who lost the original appendage because I thought it was all completely daft. But I did it anyway, because that's the sort of crazy town Dawson City is. The place where the Klondike River meets the mighty, muddy stream that gives the territory its name. Most people will have heard of this enigmatic town… You can’t say the name without thinking of gold rush tales and all that backwoods survival stuff. But put aside the touristy talk and the romantic ideas, and what’s left is a very real and gritty, workaday community. A place that all too obviously requires a certain hardiness. A community that, I felt, most certainly has a definite sense of place. Experiencing Dawson City in Winter: A Unique Adventure As I say, we arrived after a very lengthy winter drive, weary from the long and winding road. It was a journey that outlined for us, in the most stark and mind-boggling way, just how incredibly vast the Yukon is. The journey itself defined the vastness of this extraordinary region. After that icy journey from Whitehorse, I was very glad to see it, with its lights beginning to sparkle in the winter gloaming down there in the river valley. A compact grid playing host to buildings that, while many are restored, seem to retain the patina of age. Dawson has a very noticeable sense of bygone days and you get the feeling that some of these structures have borne witness to plenty of life. Dawson City's Gritty Reality: Life in the Far North The snowbound streets, some still of the old boardwalk style, do conjure a slight frisson of the past. The aging shops, hotels, diners and saloons are not museum pieces but, for the most part, functional homes and businesses. Of course you can see that tourism does exist, but you very much get the feeling that it’s not the sole purpose for the town's modern-day existence. There’s a certain quiet to Dawson, perhaps aided and abetted by the vast empty spaces around it. The river flows, slow and wide in summer - I am told it acts as a constant presence - while in winter it looks for all the world like a great wide motorway made of solid white ice. The surrounding hills and their forested slopes do a good job of enclosing the town - they offer a natural boundary between its streets and the great void beyond. Even in winter when it’s minus 40c, you can walk out of the built-up area in minutes and find yourself deep in the silent white woods. Dawson City's Community Spirit: Life in a Remote Location We did just that and crossed the river to climb a sizeable hill so we could look back down on the town. Strolling back, freezing cold, we could sense the history of the place - it is certainly there, but it’s not hammered home. You can visit the preserved buildings and the museums and learn about the gold rush era and its characters and their hardships - but from what I could make out, the town doesn’t seem to dwell on its past. Why should it? The place isn’t a theme park but very much a workaday place - one which obviously offers a lifeline to the people who live out there in the endless hills and forests beyond. The population is a mix. There are families who’ve lived here for generations - and there are plenty who have been attracted by the romance and the history - along with an even greater number who’ve come north seeking a different way of life. You get the distinct feeling there’s a strong sense of community, which you kind of expect in a place located out on the extremes. The kind of places where shared experience becomes an important fact of life. The shared experience here, of course, being all about sub-zero temperatures and vast empty distances. So you get the impression that people look out for one another, that they all have a mutual understanding of the challenges that such a remote location can thrust into everyday life. Seasonal Changes in Dawson City: Embracing the Extremes Long, dark winters and short, intense summers. The extremes are a given. The river freezes, the ground hardens and the snow covers everything. The spring thaw brings a rush of life, a brief burst of activity before the long days of summer. Eating and Drinking in Dawson City: A Relaxed Atmosphere As the sun went down, we found some wonderful places to eat and to drink. There’s a certain unpretentiousness to it all. The food is straightforward and the atmosphere is very relaxed - although, as I mentioned at the beginning, it can get a bit boisterous late on a weekend night. There’s certainly no need for airs and graces. You get the sense that people are there to enjoy themselves, to unwind. The Sourtoe Cocktail: A Dawson City Tradition (This section already appears higher up, but is so important it is worth another mention!) …Save, that is, for drinking the Sourtoe Cocktail which, alas, is a thing you have to do in Dawson. It is a real mummified toe which is kept in sea-salt and unwrapped for the ceremony - the barman reads some kind of proclamation and you knock back the vodka (or spirit of your choice) containing the toe, which must touch your lips at least once in order for you to be awarded a certificate… Exploring Dawson City's Historic Charm and Natural Beauty FACT FILE Dawson City, in the heart of Yukon Territory, is located at the confluence of Klondike and Yukon rivers. A historically significant settlement, site of the Klondike Gold Rush. It’s a compact town plan, many of the old buildings have been restored. Tourism is a component of the economy, but not the sole driver. Surrounding landscape: river, hills, forest - and lots and lots of all three. The geographic isolation is Dawson’s defining characteristic.The gold rush era is very well documented, but not overly dramatised. The town integrates its history into present-day existence. The population is a mix of long-term residents and newcomers, diverse backgrounds.Climate: extreme seasonal variations. Long winters, short summers. River freezing, ground hardening, spring thaw. Seasonal fluctuations dictate activity. Dawson City is not a place for everyone, but I liked it a lot. For anyone looking to preserve memories of this remote gold‑rush town, custom pins themed around Klondike history and northern wilderness make compact, travel‑friendly keepsakes.

Exploring Malmö, Sweden: A Scandinavian Gem Just Minutes from Copenhagen Malmö is in Sweden—but it is what you could call a cross-border destination. That’s because the region encompassing both Malmö and Copenhagen sometimes markets itself as a single, seamless travel experience. At least, that was what happened a few years ago when I was planning a press trip to Copenhagen and I was put up in Malmo. And why not? With one of the most efficient train services in the world connecting the two cities, it takes just 15 minutes to reach central Malmö from Copenhagen International Airport—about the same time it takes to get into the heart of Denmark’s capital. The Øresund Link: An Engineering Wonder The journey between Copenhagen and Malmö is a spectacle in itself. Whether you’re travelling by train or car, you’ll first plunge beneath the Øresund Strait in a sleek tunnel, only to emerge and soar across the iconic Øresund Bridge. This architectural marvel, stretching nearly 8 kilometres, ranks as one of Europe’s longest cross-channel links. It’s a bold, elegant symbol of Scandinavian cooperation and innovation. Malmö: From Industrial Port to Creative Hub With just under 300,000 residents, Malmö is Sweden’s third-largest city, nestled in the southern province of Scania (Skåne in Swedish). Once a gritty industrial port town, Malmö has dramatically reinvented itself in recent decades. As Sweden’s traditional manufacturing industries moved offshore, the city responded with resilience and vision—transforming into a centre for green innovation, biotech, digital start-ups and creative industries. The city’s skyline now features striking modern architecture, including the Turning Torso, Scandinavia’s tallest building and a bold symbol of Malmö’s renaissance. Vibrant Student Life and Historic Charm Malmö University has grown to become one of Scandinavia’s most dynamic educational institutions, infusing the city with youthful energy. Students from all over the world gather here, adding to the cosmopolitan vibe. Yet amid all the innovation and buzz, Malmö has retained its historical soul. Wander its cobbled streets and you’ll encounter ancient buildings, timbered houses, and landmarks like the 14th-century St. Peter’s Church. The city blends old and new in a way that’s effortlessly charming. Laid-Back Living and Easy Cross-Border Adventures We found Malmö to be the perfect counterpoint to Copenhagen. It has a relaxed, laid-back vibe that makes for an ideal base when exploring both sides of the Øresund Strait. After a busy day in bustling Copenhagen, returning to the leafy parks and calm cafés of Malmö felt like slipping into something more comfortable. A Shared History Between Malmö and Denmark Reading up on the city’s history helped explain the lack of any overt rivalry between Malmö and Copenhagen. This part of Sweden was actually Danish for centuries. In fact, during the 15th century, Malmö was one of Denmark’s most populous and prosperous cities, thanks to a booming herring trade. In 1434, a powerful citadel—Malmöhus—was constructed to protect the town from naval threats. It was once part of an elaborate network of defences that made Malmö one of the most fortified places in Scandinavia. Today, Malmöhus is the only structure remaining from that system, and it now houses Malmö’s excellent city museum. Things to Do in Malmö: Culture, Cuisine and Coastal Walks Malmö may be small, but it’s packed with attractions: Malmö Castle (Malmöhus): Explore the city’s fascinating history in a castle-turned-museum complex. Västra Hamnen (Western Harbour): A sustainable urban neighbourhood on the site of a former shipyard, perfect for walking or dining by the sea. Ribersborgsstranden (The People’s Beach): A sweeping city beach just minutes from the centre, ideal for swimming, walking or simply soaking in the view. Folkets Park: One of Sweden’s oldest public parks, now a lively hub for events, cafés, and outdoor play. Travellers often love bringing home small travel mementos from their trip. Custom enamel pins featuring iconic city landmarks make a lightweight, eye-catching souvenir to keep your Malmö memories alive. Don’t miss the city’s growing food scene either. Malmö has embraced its multicultural roots, and you’ll find everything from traditional Swedish smörgåsbord to world-class falafel on offer. Why Visit Malmö? Whether you’re interested in sustainable design, Nordic cuisine, medieval history, or just fancy a relaxed base for exploring Copenhagen, Malmö offers a little of everything. With its efficient connections, welcoming atmosphere and perfect balance between tradition and modernity, Malmö is a must-visit for anyone heading to southern Scandinavia. FAQ Is Malmö worth visiting if you are staying in Copenhagen? Yes. Malmö is easily reached from Copenhagen by train across the Øresund, making it a convenient destination for a day trip or a longer stay in southern Scandinavia. What is Malmö famous for? Malmö is known for its historic centre, Malmöhus, the modern Turning Torso, the Øresund connection and its multicultural food scene. How do you get from Copenhagen to Malmö? Malmö and Copenhagen are connected by the Øresund railway and road link, making travel between the two cities straightforward. What are the main things to see in Malmö? Highlights include Malmöhus, St Peter's Church, Västra Hamnen, Ribersborg beach, Folkets Park and the Turning Torso.

Following the last hike I managed to find an old newspaper walk that I wrote more than 20 years ago which includes the area west of Lamorna Cove. Here it is… We walked west as far as St Loy from Lamorna Cove and turned up onto the hills so that we could find a stone circle where we could watch the suns going down. That's right - suns. Two of them dipped towards the great, vast illuminated void of the Atlantic Ocean and I said to my friend Bins: "Who needs an eclipse when you can watch double-sunsets in Cornwall?" The whole of England's most far-flung peninsula was bathed in light to the extent that even our chins and my long nose cast no shadow - so brilliant and all-embracing was the glow of these twin orbs. We were standing amidst the standing stones of the Merry Maidens watching this cosmic phenomenon with incredulity when a band of hippies galloped up on two horse-drawn carts. As they had arrived with their backs to the suns we pointed out this somewhat miraculous occurrence and were instantly repaid by a chorus of 'wows' and 'far-outs' from all but one of this merry gang. The unsmiling exception - a tall, emaciated youth who looked as if he'd be more at home on University Challenge than galloping across the rocky downs of Penwith behind a pair of unshorn horses - stroked his wisp of a beard and said: "Interesting. Rather a rare meteorological phenomenon commonly known as a 'sun-dog'. And, in case my trusting readers thought I had finally lost my few remaining marbles, I am glad to report that the wayward young boffin was right. I phoned the Met. Check out our main Cornwall hub page here for more articles A walker studies the Merry Maidens near Lamorna Cove Office's enquiries desk at Bracknell and the knowledgeable chap there informed me: "Parhelia - otherwise known as a sun-dog. Quite rare, noteworthy at the very least. "It happens when there's a very high layer of ice-crystals which causes the light to bend. Then you can get a halo and, more rarely, a mock sun or even two - to the left (as ours was), right, both sides or even above the real sun." Walking West from Lamorna Cove So there you have it. Although this extraordinary apparition caused me to have a bolstering snifter later that evening in Zennor's Tinners Arms, I hope that you will now believe that not a drop had passed my lips before I saw the twin-suns. Indeed I had been doing a good deal of driving and little else because that's what it takes to get from almost anywhere to Lamorna Cove... From Lamorna Cove to St Loy Ah, Lamorna Cove. Even the name is worth repeating and in the shadowy silence of a sunlit evening it's as romantic a place as any to be found along our rocky coasts. Take a look at our special page on the South West Coast Path for more walks ideas Not that it was in the least bit romantic last time I visited its granite strewn shore. My daughter Nancy had just learned to walk and, in that contrary way typical of children, she insisted on clambering along the path under her own steam rather than riding in that well known object of parental torture - the back-pack. Her mother still has nightmares about Nancy teetering along this path which, for the first half-mile or so, is riddled with unexpected abysses and sudden, vertical drops. And so it was with particular ease that I strode out west of Lamorna on the evening of the two suns with my family tucked up safely at home and only my pal Bins to worry about as he cantered off like some wily old goat in the general direction of Zawn Gamper. See our special post on the walks of West Penwith Along the Cliffs to St Loy's Cove Zawn Gamper just happens to be a cove along the way, but I have a weakness for places with weird names. This one sounds a bit like some half-boiled psycho in a second-rate backwoods horror movie. Anyway, it's a lovely enough place and you get to it by walking up out of the shadowy setting of Lamorna Cove, along the sunny headlands of Rosemodress Cliffs, past Carn Barges, Gazell, Tol Toft and Tater-du. The names won't mean anything to anyone except the lobster-pot fishermen who work along here, but like I say, I just can't resist them. Indeed I can't resist this fabulous hike. As for Bins he couldn't resist a word or two with some American girls who were 'doing' the peninsula from St Ives around to Penzance. They complained that this south coast was too "bitty" and they much preferred the bolder, emptier northern cliffs past Zennor and St Just. Once I would have agreed, but now I'm not so sure. There is something Du Maurier-esque or even Secret Seven about this stretch, as if the most natural thing in the world along here would be to stumble across a French-speaking pirate bidding a secret and passionate adieu to the lady of the manor, or perhaps a Nazi spy counting the hours until darkness would cloak his escape in a U-boat. St Loy and the Route Inland This is especially feasible when you get to St Loy's Cove where there are a couple of remote houses - one watching over the sea as bold as brass, the other lurking in the woods in a clandestine sort of way. See our post on places to stay in West Cornwall Fact File Start and finish: Lamorna Cove car park Distance: About 5½ miles / 9km Going: Moderate, with some steep ascents and descents; rocky coastal paths and potentially muddy inland sections. Highlights: Lamorna Cove, St Loy's Cove, Tater-du, the Merry Maidens and The Pipers. Map: Ordnance Survey Explorer 102 – Land's End The Merry Maidens and The Pipers A footpath climbs up through these woods and along this you must go to reach the B 3315 which will take you back east. I'm sorry about this road bit, but if you really don't want to be on the tarmac there is a zig-zag route on a footpath across the fields from Boskenna Cross to Boscowen Rose and then up to the ancient stone circle known as the Merry Maidens. For us it was getting late and, having spotted the twin-suns sinking fast we wanted to hop along to the sepulchral stones which seemed the perfect place to soak up an atmosphere which seemed half Camelot, half X-File. So rich is this corner in ancient remains that within just a stone's throw there's a 4,000 year old stone grave on the grass verge of the road and two enormous monoliths called The Pipers looking ominous and vibrant with hidden meaning in the next field - not to mention what must be one of the finest stone circles in the country. Back to Lamorna We were soaking up all this ancient rune meets cosmic-happening type stuff when the hippies arrived on their horse-drawn traps and wandered about in their robes wafting scents of wood-smoke and horse in the warm evening breeze. There was something rather beautiful and alluring about them and my youth-yearning, middle-aged bones wanted to stay up there on the hill in the hopes that some of their carefree existence would rub off on my own, but instead we turned down the cool leafy lane that leads back to Lamorna so that we could reach Zennor in time for a bracing drink. After all, it's not every night that a chap sees double before the sun goes down. We stayed in the are with Classic Cottages Frequently Asked Questions About the Lamorna Walk Where does the Lamorna walk start? The walk starts and finishes at Lamorna Cove in West Cornwall, following the coast towards St Loy before heading inland towards the Merry Maidens and returning to Lamorna. How long is the Lamorna to St Loy walk? The comparable current Lamorna and St Loy circular route is about 5.6 miles (9km). It is classed as moderate, with some steep ascents and descents and rocky sections of coast path. What can you see on a walk from Lamorna? The route takes in Lamorna Cove, Rosemodress Cliffs, Carn Barges, Tater-du, St Loy's Cove and the ancient Merry Maidens stone circle, with The Pipers standing nearby. What are the Merry Maidens? The Merry Maidens are a prehistoric stone circle in West Cornwall, consisting of a ring of standing stones. The wider West Penwith landscape contains an exceptionally rich concentration of prehistoric monuments. Is the Lamorna walk difficult? The current South West Coast Path route is rated moderate because it includes considerable ascent and descent, some steep sections, rocky coast path and potentially muddy inland paths. Check out our post on the National Trust's Neptune Operation in Cornwall

Full of good intent I set off for inland Cornwall, conscious that I sometimes ignore its wide acres for the splendours of the coast. And I got as far as Holsworthy on the county border when - because of the peculiar weather conditions of the last week - the call of the coast got the better of me. A Wild Day on the North Cornish Coast Why? Because inland Cornwall was obscured by a blanket of fog. What started as mist soon had me slowing to two miles an hour. Consulting my Ordnance Survey Explorer Map 126, I found that the closest seaside lay a dozen miles away between Hartland and Bude. I love this stretch of the littoral, but I'm aware that some people don't. They find it too harsh and severe. The rocks are grey and their razorback edges are brutal. I prefer to think of it as romantically rugged and wild. All I had to do was find a section I'd never walked before, and that turned out to be easy. It happened to be the nearest bit, and within 20 rain-splattered minutes I found myself in the National Trust car park at Sandy Mouth. The good news was that, a mile after we'd left the village of Kilkhampton, we drove out of the rain, just as I'd predicted. Indeed, we could see the sun shining a mile or two out across the waves, though it never dared creep closer to the savage coast. My aim, on this quickly cobbled together walk, was to head north along the coast past Warren Gutter to Duckpool and then return via an inland route. The Extraordinary Cliffs of Sandymouth But first we wandered down onto the great beach that stretches all the way south to Bude when the tide is out. I wanted to show my friend the extraordinary strata that I knew we'd find along the cliffs. And we were not disappointed. The seams of rocks bend up and down like so much tissue paper. See our South West Coast Path page here for more articles It's all part of the Bude Formation, a sequence of Upper Carboniferous rocks laid down about 300 million years ago. In those far off days this whole area lay beneath the sea and particles of sand and silt would drop to the ocean floor. Over immeasurable periods of time these would build up and so become compacted and form sandstones and shales. A mere million years later molten magma was forced up from the earth's core in a massive upsurge that was to form the granite uplands of Bodmin Moor and Dartmoor. Some of this molten rock spread north in a gigantic sheet causing such pressures to occur, that the local rocks were distorted all over the place. And that is what we see today along tortured undulations of these fabulous cliffs. The previously flat layers have been bent vertical in places like a sort of great ruckled bedspread slept in by a giant with uneasy dreams. I'm told the National Trust cleared away a clutter of unsightly huts and rusting cars when the organisation took over Sandy Mouth. I'm sure they were right to do so, but I - in my oddball fashion - am a great fan of unsightly huts. Anyway, there's the aforementioned car park and a rather good cafe where you can spoil yourself upon your return. Walking the South West Coast Path to Stowe Cliffs I do not recommend taking refreshment before you go, as there's a little climbing to be done. The South West Coast path marches off to the north and we follow it directly up the hill. See more of our Cornish coastal walks here Check our some great Cornish pub walks here At the top of Stowe Cliffs we are treated to superb views stretching way beyond Bude, to the big bluff hiding Crackington Haven, and on again to the easily recognisable lump of Cornwall that sits off the coast at Tintagel. A flock of sheep grazed near the cliff edge and one stood there right on the brink looking at the shore far below. "Don't jump!" we shouted in unison - the ewe really did have a suicidal look about her. But sheep are not prone to taking such desperate personal measures and she walked calmly away. Unlike the local rabbits around here, who burrow holes to the edge of the abyss. There can only be one result to such irresponsible burrowing: instant and vertiginous death. Warren Gutter, Duckpool and the Juanita I reckon you could reach Duckpool by walking along the beach if the tide was low, though I'm not entirely sure as there are some large rock ridges at Warren Gutter. This is an area where the strata seems to have gone mad, leaving all sorts of weird, contorted shapes. It was between here and Duckpool that the Spanish brig Juanita came aground full of Venezuelan sugar in 1865. I think I've related this story before - but so what. Captain Yvastricks, who was later described as "a gallant little Spanish don", drew his sword to protect his ship from the men he thought were wreckers. It was only when the coastguard showed him his official badge on the button of his tunic that the sturdy little skipper put his sword away. The climb down to Duckpool is precipitous to say the least. And you don't really have to do it if you're feeling lazy - just head inland around the upper contours of the hill. Walk across the crest and head south along the edge of the Trust-owned land. The Grenvilles of Stowe We went down to Duckpool: a) because I like the great ravine and its rocky beach, and b) because I wanted to recall the Grenvilles who once owned all that you can see around here. And they owned it for a long time - 450 years - and they became one of the most influential families ever to rule a Cornish roost. Roger Grenville was captain of the celebrated Mary Rose and he went down with his ship, watched by his monarch 1545. Sir Richard Grenville died fighting the Spanish in his ship The Revenge, and his grandson Sir Bevil Grenville fought for Charles I and was killed at the Battle of Landsdowne. He has gone down as one of the great Cornish heroes. The Walk Back to Sandymouth The walk south to Sandy Mouth is a pleasant and airy experience as we stride along the high ground. I felt smug each step of the way, seeing distant Bodmin Moor swathed in fog and rain. If the going get's tough - the tough must get going - to the coast. Fact File Basic Hike: from the National Trust car park at Sandy Mouth (there is a charge) north to Duck Pool and back via the inland route. You find Sandy Mouth three miles outside the village of Kilkhampton, which is on the Bude-Bideford road. Recommended Map: Ordnance Survey Explorer 126 - Clovelly and Hartland. Distance and Going: four miles, steep in places. Check out our places to stay in North Cornwall here Frequently Asked Questions About the Sandymouth Walk Where is Sandymouth? Sandymouth is on Cornwall's north coast, just north of Bude and close to Kilkhampton. The National Trust manages the beach and surrounding countryside. How far is the Sandymouth to Duckpool walk? The walk described in this article is about four miles, including the inland return. The current National Trust coastal route from Sandymouth to Duckpool and back is shorter at 2.5 miles (4km), while its Sandymouth–Duckpool–Stowe Wood circular is 4.5 miles (7.2km). Is the Sandymouth walk on the South West Coast Path? Yes. The route described here follows the South West Coast Path north from Sandymouth towards Duckpool before returning inland. The coast path also continues south towards Northcott Mouth. What is special about the cliffs at Sandymouth? The cliffs form part of the Bude Formation, a sequence of Upper Carboniferous rocks containing spectacularly folded layers of shale, mudstone, siltstone and sandstone. Is Sandymouth beach tidal? Very much so. Sandymouth, Duckpool and nearby Northcott Mouth are highly tidal beaches, so tide times should be checked before exploring the beaches.

A Magical Estate Full of History and Beauty Cotehele is one of those places that draws you back time and again. A photographer surveys the scene down by the Tamar at Cotehele Tucked neatly away on the Cornish bank of the River Tamar, this National Trust property is steeped in natural beauty and rich history. I first discovered Cotehele not on its winding paths but in central London, at the Tate Gallery, where Turner's evocative painting "Crossing the Brook" led me to wonder: where can that be? That very brook is a tributary of the Tamar, not far from Cotehele itself. Since then, I’ve experienced Cotehele in many ways—from flying over the estate at low altitude to arriving by ferry, speeding past it in a salmon-poacher patrol boat, and even walking down from Calstock after taking the train. Each visit has its own charm, but the magic of this place always remains. Getting to Cotehele 🚗🚶‍♂️ Driving to Cotehele might seem a bit pedestrian after all those adventures, but it is well worth the effort. The lanes down from Gunnislake are narrow and winding, but the destination is worth every twist and turn. Park in the National Trust car park and be sure to visit the historic house and gardens before or after your walk. The estate relies on the support of visitors, so stop by the reception area to get your ticket for the house and gardens. See our Cornwall and Isles of Scilly hub page for more articles here A boat glides past the old boat shed at Cotehele, Cornwall A Walk Through Time Along the Tamar River 🚴‍♀️⛰ One of my favourite routes starts from the riverside. You’ll see a way-marked path leading down to Cotehele Quay – an area of timeless beauty, steeped in history. From the quay, take the short walk to Cotehele Bridge, which crosses the Morden Stream as it meanders through reed beds before joining the River Tamar. The bridge area is a peaceful spot, perfect for watching the gentle flow of the water and hoping to catch a glimpse of a vibrant kingfisher. 🦜 Across the stream, you can find the remains of old lime-kilns, a reminder of the rich agricultural history that once flourished along the Tamar. The acidic soils here needed lime for sweetening, and these kilns were key to that process. Through the Woods to Cotehele Mill 🌲 The way-marked path leads through Elbow Wood, a tranquil stretch that eventually crosses a small lane at Newhouses. On the way, you might want to take a detour to visit Cotehele Mill, which requires a National Trust ticket. This restored working mill is a window into the past, with waterwheels turning just as they did centuries ago. Continuing on, you enter Comfort Wood, walking alongside the stream until the path climbs out of the woods and across fields to the hamlet of Newton. From there, I chose to head towards Norris Green and drop into the picturesque Danescombe Valley to see the restored papermill. It’s a fascinating glimpse into an industry that thrived here over 200 years ago, producing brown paper amidst dense undergrowth. Industrial History and Nature Combined ⚙️🌳 Further down the valley, you’ll pass reminders of Cornwall’s industrial past, including old copper mines and the remnants of the Cotehele Consoles and Danescombe Valley Mines. Copper, arsenic, and other minerals were once extracted from these now quiet hills, and today the ruins are home only to bats and the occasional holidaymaker. Check out some great pub walks in Cornwall here A highlight of this area is the sawmill, a once-thriving water-powered mill linked to the river by its own tramway. Now lovingly restored by the National Trust, it’s difficult to imagine the once-bustling industry amid the serene surroundings. The Return to Cotehele Quay 🏳⭐️ As you head back towards Cotehele Quay, be sure to take in the fantastic viewpoint overlooking Calstock and its impressive viaduct. The trail descends past the Chapel in the Wood, a place rich in legend, where a member of the Edgcumbe family once faked his desperate leap into the river to escape his pursuers. 🚀 Cotehele on the River Tamar In contrast to that dramatic escape, I found myself with no desire to leave Cotehele and its beautiful quay. On a warm day, the quay is one of the coolest, most tranquil spots I know. With reeds rustling, trees swaying, and the gentle calls of birds mingling with the river's soft sounds, it’s the perfect place to sit, reflect, and appreciate the deep romance of this estate. Key Highlights of Your Visit to Cotehele: Historic House and Gardens: Don't miss the beautifully preserved house and its enchanting gardens. 🏰🌱 Cotehele Quay and Morden Stream: A perfect spot for a riverside walk and some birdwatching. Elbow Wood and Comfort Wood: Enjoy a peaceful woodland hike with diverse wildlife. Cotehele Mill and Danescombe Valley: Discover Cornwall's industrial history in these well-preserved sites. Chapel in the Wood: Learn about local legends and enjoy breathtaking views of the river and beyond. 🚩 Plan Your Visit to Cotehele For a unique experience steeped in both nature and history, Cotehele offers a little of everything—from tranquil river walks to fascinating glimpses of Cornwall's past. Make sure you take the time to fully explore this enchanting estate. Visit the National Trust website for the latest opening hours and information about guided tours. See more of our walks in Cornwall here Frequently asked questions about Cotehele Where is Cotehele? Cotehele is a National Trust estate beside the River Tamar in east Cornwall, near St Dominick and not far from Calstock. Can you walk around Cotehele? Yes. There are several walking routes through the Cotehele estate. The National Trust's current Cotehele circular walk is 1.7 miles (2.72km), while the Cotehele and Bohetherick Woodland Walk is 2.3 miles (3.68km). What can you see on a Cotehele walk? Depending on the route, walkers can see Cotehele Quay, the River Tamar, Cotehele Mill, woodland, the Morden Valley, the historic house and gardens and views towards Calstock and its famous viaduct. Is Cotehele on the River Tamar? Yes. Cotehele Quay sits directly beside the River Tamar and was once an important working quay. Today it is also a starting point for walks and other activities on the river.

If there was a list of Very Special Places of the Realm kept, perhaps, in a velvet-lined drawer beneath the Crown Jewels, then humble, beautiful Cadgwith would undoubtedly be there scrawled on the parchment in finest copperplate. Cadgwith: not so much a harbour, more an indentation in the rocks. But what a wonderful indentation it is - enjoying a greater dalliance with the sun than any other place in the kingdom. We were visiting the place last week during our stay at the amazing Mullion Cove apartments. Fishing boats on the beach at Cadgwith, In the mornings the south-east facing valley, with its thatched cottages and clutter of fishermen's sheds, soaks up light from sky and sea like nowhere else I know. Light is everywhere: under your chin, in the fishermen's lofts, even in the gig shed where the doors leak the morning sun. Well, at least it was the day we were there recently, as my photographs prove. We walked down to the village and sat there and even in the steely light of a cold November day we could admire the sheer colour of the spectacle. A Mediterranean blue sea spread a thousand dancing reflections upon the painted boats and the great jumble of highly coloured ephemera that all fishermen seem to collect about their stores. In the light of Cadgwith, even rust looks beautiful, let alone the ultra-marine hues of the ropes and tackle. Starting the Walk in Cadgwith The basis of this walk was a chance to grab an early lunch at the Cadgwith Cove Inn and after the repast we strolled up the narrow lane to Ruan Minor - the village which is located high above Cadgers on top of the escarpment.. It was a cold day. Very, very, cold. A thing so unusual in the autumn of 2015 that we felt in need of shelter and I happened to know where we could find some. I’m talking about the National Trust owned Poltesco Valley that runs down to small but fascinating Carleon Cove. A few years ago I wrote about this place in a special series about special seaside places and had been surprised to find that the coombe was one of the most wooded places to be found down at the southern end of the Lizard. The other day a friend of mine wanted to take a closer look at the industrial archaeology there, so this walk seemed a perfect opportunity. Check out our post on Cornwall's serpentine industry here Walking Up to Ruan Minor To reach it you must locate the narrow lane that branches off what passes for Ruan Minor’s main street immediately north of the church. I apologise for the fact that so far this walk has been on paved public highways, but I promise - you won’t have to worry about meeting too many cars as you descend the steep winding lane into the Poltesco Valley. Eventually, at the bottom of the hill, the lane takes a sharp left and turns inland - but directly in front of you at this point you will see the National Trust’s car park and what looks to be an old farm but which is now in fact the land-owning charity’s local base of operations. Down into the Poltesco Valley The trust has established a small network of paths around the valley which I was shown a couple of years back by head ranger Justin Whitehouse - so on this occasion I thought we’d branch off north along the coast path to round Polbream Point and continue on over Thorny Cliff so that we could reach Kennack Sands. It is a very pleasant walk indeed, but I will admit that it is a bit of an annexe to the main circular walk. I had intended taking a few photos of the big combers and the surfers we saw on this rare South coast surfing beach - but by the time we got to Kennack the skies had darkened. So we retraced our footsteps back to historic The stream runs down the Poltesco Valley Carleon Cove which made a big name for itself in the 1800s because of its connections with the old serpentine industry. The Serpentine Works at Carleon Cove Legend has it that back in the 1860s Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were sailing around the Lizard when Albert felt a bit seasick - so they came ashore at Kynance Cove and Albert bought a piece of turned serpentine. Despite feeling ill, the prince took a liking to the stuff. For those who don’t know it, serpentine is metamorphic rock laced with dark green veins and dotted here and there with reds and whites. Not only is it attractive, but it is easily worked - and the story goes that Prince Albert bought some more items from the craftsmen he came across near Kynance, just a few miles away from the Poltesco Valley on the west coast. At the time there was just a small industry working the stone. But suddenly it had royal approval and everybody in the kingdom wanted serpentine. As a result a factory sprouted up in this most unlikely of spots. It was open for about 40 years and churned out everything from chimney pots, coffee tables, fireplaces, and church fonts as well as countless little knick knacks. Check out our post on the National Trust and the Cornish coast here The path eventually reaches Carleon Cove The factory was placed at the bottom of the Poltesco Valley because of the fall of water - and a waterwheel was soon powering the heavy machinery necessary to turn huge quantities of the stone. There was hefty stone cutting equipment - a fact which is witnessed because huge boulders were moved here - strung above the river on aerial launders. They workers would have cut, shaped and polished them - and flat bottomed stone barges would have come in from the sea and moored up in the little river where today you will see naught but a shallow pond. The industry faded as dramatically as it began. According to legend, Queen Victoria later went on holiday to Italy and discovered marble, which then became all the rage. A good job too, I say. If she hadn’t fallen for the pinks and pale colours of marble, serpentine would have remained in vogue and this place could now be a huge industrial site. Back Along the Coast Path to Cadgwith Instead, the Poltesco Valley and Carleon Cove are among the most peaceful parts of Southern Cornwall. Unlike Cadgwith - which became even more popular in recent times since Monty Hall based his excellent Fisherman’s Apprentice TV programme there. To return to this busy jewel in Cornwall’s crown all we have to do is to head south along the coast path, round Enys Head and Kildown Point, and within a mile we’ll be round the headland which introduces us to Cadgwith Cove. See our post about where to stay on the Lizard here Frequently asked questions about the Cadgwith to Poltesco walk How long is the Cadgwith to Poltesco walk? The route described here is a longer walk incorporating Cadgwith, Ruan Minor, Poltesco and the coast path, with an optional extension towards Kennack Sands. The exact distance depends on which sections you follow. Where does the walk start? This walk begins in Cadgwith and heads inland towards Ruan Minor before descending into the Poltesco Valley. What can you see at Poltesco? Poltesco has the remains of its historic serpentine industry, including the ruins of the Victorian factory and its former wheel pit. The National Trust's shorter Poltesco walk also passes the old mill, Carleon Cove and the serpentine works. Is the Cadgwith to Poltesco walk on the South West Coast Path? Parts of the route use the South West Coast Path, particularly the coastal section around Polbream Point and back towards Cadgwith.

The rock, serpentine, was named in the 16th century by geologists who thought its dappled colourings resembled snake’s skin. The 20 square mile outcrop of the attractive rock which is centred at the end of the Lizard is unique in the UK. Originally formed deep in the Earth’s crust it has, over millions of years, been subjected to enormous pressures and high temperatures and the resultant differences in mineral content produce a rich, multicoloured veining. For the best part of 200 years local craftsmen have been quarrying and working the stone, and their small huts and workshops can still be seen at the end of the peninsula today. Nowadays only a few people are licensed to extract extremely limited amounts of the rock. It was not always so – in the mid-1800s there was quite an industry at work quarrying and working serpentine, and by 1883 20 men and three boys were being employed by the Poltesco Marble Company. Cheap marble imports, the Lizard’s remoteness and the serpentine’s weakness to deteriorate quickly in polluted exterior situations all helped to secure the industry’s demise. But the local families worked on and still produce all manner of gifts fashioned out of serpentine today - perhaps best known are the neatly turned lighthouses that by now must adorn a million mantelpieces around the world. A while ago I visited a corner of the Lizard Peninsula to find out more… FOLLOW OUR FULL POST OF THE HIKE FROM CADGWITH TO POLTESCO VALLEY The Secret Poltesco Valley and Carleon Cove If you were to devise a recipe for the perfect secret seaside it might go something like this: take a remote coastline far from the madding crowd and punctuate it with a beautiful wooded valley featuring the long lost remains of old water-mills and have its burbling stream issue out on to a lovely, lonely, beach - pausing just a while to form a pond under some mysterious looking ruins. That is almost an exact description of the Poltesco Valley leading down to Carleon Cove, way down on the Lizard Peninsula’s south eastern coast – inaccurate only in that it is not very far from a madding crowd… The exquisite fishing village of Cadgwith has always been popular with tourists – and has been especially so since Monty Hall based his excellent Fisherman’s Apprentice TV programme there recently. But Carleon Cove – which is the small indention just two bays north of Cadgwith – may as well be 100 miles from a tourist honey-pot. When I adventured there on the hottest day of the year so far recently, just one family was sitting on its pebble beach. The Western Morning News was invited to visit the Poltesco Valley and its magical hidden cove by Justin Whitehouse who is the National Trust’s head ranger on the Lizard – and before we began our walk down to the shore he explained how an old farm in the coombe now acts as his local base. “We’ve got workshops here, an education room and my office which is in a shepherds hut. This was a farmstead and 100 years ago and would have been a thriving place. The river has one of the largest falls of water to run off the downs, so in the days of waterpower it was a busy industrial valley - there were about five or six mills altogether. See our post on great places to stay around the Lizard peninsula here Path down the Poltesco Valley to the beach “There was a mediaeval mill just here, probably dating from the 1300s - but the one further up was working until the last century. However, the main industry happened further down the valley – and that was to do with the serpentine industry in the 1800s.” With that we began our walk down one of the paths which the trust has introduced to the valley and I asked Justin if short and pleasant stroll taken by many people… “Carleon Cove is gorgeous, but it is relatively quiet. Maybe that’s because it’s a boulder cove - but it is a secret spot and not many people know about it. I suppose you could call it a locals’ beach. From my point of view there’s much more to do here than on a bucket-and-spade beach,” he added, referring to popular Kennack Sands which is the next seaside spot to the north. “There are fantastic rockpools at low tide and just exploring the ruins here is fascinating - there’s masses of history. I bring my children here and they absolutely love it. There’s the river, you can swim off the rocks - and also it’s pretty calm usually being on the eastern side of the Lizard. “The people who do take the trouble to walk less than half a mile to discover this place enjoy a sense of ownership - they really think they have discovered it, which I think is good. “There are lots of secret seasides or coves on my patch,” he went on. “In fact, there are some I probably wouldn’t tell you about - because it’s all about exploration. Getting out of your cars, packing a day-sack and going for a walk… You can’t go wrong - keep the sea on one side as you walk and you will come across gorgeous little coves just like this. “There are people who just want to drive somewhere, but that adds to the magic of this place – you can’t drive to the cove. And not everyone wants to make the effort to come to a beach like this, but I would encourage anybody to get out of their car and find somewhere like this. There are some hidden coves that are a bit of a scramble,” added Justin with a warning. “And I would remind people to be careful.” Carleon Cove might be a place where gulls go to be lonely today, but it wasn’t always like that – as you can tell from the jumble ruins which stretch off into the bamboos and trees at the back end of the beach. Almost all of these were connected to the old serpentine industry which flourished here for just a few decades in the 1800s, but adjacent to the one intact building which remains there’s a clue that point to what people did in Carleon Cove for many centuries before the weird rock was discovered. It’s the exterior wall of an ancient winch-house, similar but smaller to the one you can still see at Sennen Cove – and it would have been used to haul up the heavy wooden boats by the fishing community that once plied their trade here. You can imagine the surprise those old fishermen had when – over a very short period of time – they saw their peaceful cove overtaken by a frenzy of extremely noisy and dusty hacking, hewing, sawing and chiselling… See our Cornwall and Isles of Scilly page here How Prince Albert Helped Make Cornish Serpentine Famous Justin explained: “Legend has it that back in the 1860s Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were sailing around the Lizard when Albert felt a bit seasick - so they came ashore at Kynance Cove and Albert bought a piece of turned serpentine. And he got a taste for it…” For those who don’t know it, serpentine is metamorphic rock laced with dark green veins and dotted here and there with reds and whites. Not only is it attractive, but it is easily worked and the story goes that Prince Albert bought an armful of small items from the one or two craftsmen he came across near Kynance, just a few miles away from the Poltesco Valley on the west coast. The Victorian Factory and Its Waterwheel “At the time there was just a small industry going on,” said Justin. “But suddenly it had royal approval and everybody wanted serpentine. As a result this factory sprouted up here. It was open for about 40 years and it was churning out everything from chimney pots, coffee tables, fireplaces, church fonts - big things, not just the small knick knacks. “The quarrying took place a bit further down the coast,” he explained. “But the factory was here because of the fall of water and they had a waterwheel to power the heavy machinery. There would have been big stone cutting equipment, because there were huge boulders moved here - strung above the river on aerial launders. They’d have cut them, shaped them, polished them… And, believe it or not, flat bottomed stone barges would have come in from the sea and moored up here in the little river where the pond now is. “Large schooners would have moored offshore out in the bay and the barges would have taken stuff out to them and they’d have gone off to London and the Continent. We know for sure there were 20 men working here in the factory - so it was a big industry for the area.” So why did it all disappear? “Well, again this is according to legend… But the story goes that Queen Victoria went on holiday to Italy one year and discovered marble - and suddenly it was in vogue - nobody wanted this old fashioned serpentine any more. It’s probably a good job that happened - if it had carried on this place could now be a huge industrial site. “In fact, The Trust only acquired this valley in the 1970s and I’ve heard that the pervious owner deliberately demolished some of the buildings here because he was adamant he wanted to protect the place and let nature take over.” Carleon Cove looking inland past the old serpentine buildings A Wild Valley Saved for Nature Having said that Justin cast his gaze across the ruins down by the beach and said: “This all looks a bit wild, but it’s not just left - there’s sensitive management going on here. It is a haven for wonderful stuff, including rare plants and animals. For example, there’s Babbington’s leek – a plant that was first discovered in the Poltesco Valley – in fact, it was one of the last plants to be named and identified in the last century. The Reverend Babbington came here and discovered this gorgeous form of architectural onion. “And the places is an absolute haven for reptiles - it is riddled with lizards and adders the river has frogs and toads. And no, the lizards didn’t give the peninsula the name - Lizard is a corruption of old Cornish for high place... You can imagine it would have been quite dramatic as you were approaching the mainland in an old ship and you saw this high place. “The Trust owns a total of 22 kilometres of coastline on the Lizard today,” Justin told me. “I suppose it’s most famous for the Cornish chough – and it’s been a good year for them. We’ve now had 11 years of successful breeding and most of that is to do with habitat - we have worked with our tenants and Natural England and brought the habitat the choughs need back.” Poltesco Valley, however, is not an example of the open coastal heath so beloved by Cornwall’s “national” bird. “This valley is unique - it’s one of the very few wooded valleys around here - we even have elms. This is one of the best stands of natural elms left. They do get the dreaded Dutch elm disease but the Cornish elms here are a little bit more resistant. And the geographic position means they are a more isolated population so there is not the concentration of the beetle that causes the disease.” As we sat there on the rocky beach joking about the modern journalistic obsession in Britain for “silly-summer-period” stories about great white sharks (a possible sighting of one was made just off the Lizard a few months ago) Justin fell into the kind of reverie people occasionally have when they work in very beautiful places… “Most of all this a brilliant place to explore - all the local schools come to our education room and within 500 metres they have the beach, rock-pools, woodlands, the river, the history, the heathlands… Poltesco Valley and its beach has got absolutely everything all in one small area.” Justin Whitehouse of the National Trust’s on the Lizard Frequently asked questions about Cornish serpentine Then three questions: What is Cornish serpentine? Cornish serpentine is a distinctive green-and-red mottled stone found particularly on the Lizard Peninsula. It has been quarried and worked in Cornwall for centuries and was used for ornaments, architectural features and other decorative objects. Where can you see serpentine in Cornwall? The Lizard Peninsula is the best-known area for Cornish serpentine. The remains of the old serpentine works at Poltesco, near Carleon Cove, are a particularly interesting reminder of the industry that once flourished there. Why is the Poltesco Valley important to Cornwall's serpentine industry? Poltesco was once home to a significant serpentine-working industry. The surviving Victorian factory and waterwheel provide a glimpse of the industrial activity that took place in this now peaceful coastal valley.

Six months, 29 coastal locations and some extraordinary discoveries: Martin Hesp recalls the Secret Seasides series that took him to some of the West Country's quietest and most remarkable shores. Travel writer Martin Hesp on the Cornish coast Who doesn't like to be beside the seaside? Who doesn't like to be beside the seaside? If the feedback my Secret Seasides newspaper series received over six months is anything to go by, very few people indeed. In more than 12 years of writing major series for the newspaper, Secret Seasides ran for the longest period of time and was probably one of the most popular. That doesn't surprise me. People love the coast. They like being on beaches. And a series of articles setting out to discover hidden coves, little-visited bays and silent shorelines was always going to have something going for it. What did surprise me was just how hidden, little-visited and silent many of these wondrous places were. Over the six months I visited 29 different Secret Seaside locations, travelling around Devon, Cornwall, Somerset and the Isles of Scilly in search of beaches and coastal places that somehow remained remarkably quiet. I should think the number of people I counted collectively, across every hidden shore, would have failed to fill a double-decker bus. Black Head on the Lizard coast of Cornwall, with a tiny path leading down to a secret beach The secret of the empty beach Part of the reason may have been the weather. We began the series in the middle of what turned out to be a miserable summer. The much-hoped-for Indian summer failed to materialise in autumn, and the beaches we visited remained remarkably empty. And you don't really expect to find remote beaches filled with the madding crowds in winter. Nevertheless, I have always believed that the old national park observation that most people venture no further than a few hundred metres from their cars contains more than a grain of truth. There is something slightly extraordinary about it. The West Country possesses some of the finest coastline in Britain, yet many visitors never see more than the easiest-to-reach section. Does that sadden me? nFrom a purely selfish perspective, not a single jot. Indeed, I am only too happy to have the West Country's fabulous coastal jewels all to myself. But it does sadden me from another perspective because I don't particularly like the idea of coming from a nation that can't be bothered to get off its collective backside. Of course, not everyone enjoys good health or is fit enough to go clambering down to remote, boulder-strewn beaches. And one particularly heart-warming thing about working on a series like this was that you tended to receive lovely letters from older readers who once, a very long time ago, were doing all the clambering and climbing necessary. For them, a series like this seemed to act like a blast of fresh air beamed directly at their comfy armchair. Empty Lantic Bay on the south Cornish coast Sometimes the secret beach is just one cove away What I couldn't understand was why so few people ventured beyond an overcrowded beach in midsummer. In many cases, pure seaside bliss lies just one cove away from teeming, swarming hell – and yet not a soul bothers to stroll over the headland to make the discovery. One of the best examples was Ayrmer Cove in South Devon. On one of the few hot days of that summer, I visited the little beach in the South Hams, set at the end of a lovely valley away from the madding crowd. But not that far away. One beach to the east there is Challaborough, at the foot of a mighty caravan park, and one beach east of that again is Bigbury. Both were packed on the day I was there. Ayrmer Cove had just a dozen people enjoying its secret wonders. The local National Trust ranger told me that was about the most you would ever see down there. That, in a nutshell, was the spirit of Secret Seasides. You didn't necessarily have to travel further. You simply had to walk a little further. National Trust wardens at Ayrmer Cove, Lansallos: a secret beach in the shadow of Polperro Much the same could be said for a South Cornish beach which I introduced in the original series like this: “Compared to the crowded streets of nearby Polperro or Fowey, Lansallos is perhaps the supreme advertisement for the spirit of this series.” Lansallos has the complete kit of secret-seaside parts. There is an extremely pleasant beach, a lonely hamlet and a deep and ancient path leading down towards the sea. And yet this beautiful little corner of the Cornish coast can feel remarkably untouched. That is despite being close to two of Cornwall's most famous destinations. [See the full Lansallos walk by clicking here.] The lesson was becoming clear. The most rewarding coastal discoveries weren't necessarily the ones furthest from civilisation. Sometimes they were the ones sitting surprisingly close to it. The coast at Lansallos Salcombe Regis Mouth: it's a long way down The secret seaside way, way under the hamlet of Salcombe Regis was another example of this "close to crowded civilisation" genre. It lies only about a mile east of ever-popular Sidmouth. But compared with the last two examples, we were getting down to the nitty-gritty as to why such places remain on their lonesome. It's an awful long way down to Salcombe Regis Mouth. Which means that it is an even tougher slog back up. There is no other choice, other than to arrive by boat. And this, dear readers, is why the few negative comments about the series were water off a duck's back to me. A few letters complained that we were telling the world about special places that should remain hidden and therefore empty. I wouldn't worry too much. Most of the beaches we featured were difficult to reach. SEE THE FULL SALCOMBE REGIS MOUTH ARTICLE HERE The beach at Salcombe Regis Mouth When reaching the beach becomes an adventure Some places were difficult in the extreme. Selworthy Sands, hidden behind Porlock Bay's Hurlestone Point on the Exmoor coast, was one such place. It became one of the most intriguing stories of the series. Readers wanted to know how I had reached the dangerous strand, and I received all manner of letters and emails asking about the route. In the interests of health and safety – which is something I am rarely interested in – I declined to give exact details. Guilt is something I rarely suffer from, but even I draw the line when it comes to recommending dangerous places. By all means admire the secret Gull's Hole and the extraordinary coastline around Hurlestone Point. But don't assume that because somebody has managed to reach a remote beach, it is necessarily sensible for everyone else to follow. Low tide at Selworthy Sands The West Country coast has its hazards. Cliffs, tides, steep slopes and slippery paths don't care how enthusiastic you are. And that was one of the things I became increasingly conscious of during the series: a secret beach is not necessarily a beach that should be treated as an ordinary beach. Sometimes the journey is part of the adventure. Sometimes the journey is the warning. The extraordinary islands of Scilly Other Secret Seasides were not dangerous to reach. Just damned difficult. That was certainly the case with some of the amazing beaches I visited on the uninhabited islands of the Isles of Scilly. Samson was one of the most memorable. Nowadays the island is uninhabited, but it once had its own community. Its lonely Landing Beach, which I featured during the series, was once an important link between the islanders and the outside world. Standing there today, it is difficult to imagine the activity that once took place on those shores. There is something particularly haunting about deserted island settlements. The buildings remain. The paths remain. The beaches remain. But the people have gone. [See our full post about a trip to Samson, Isles of Scilly here.] An empty beach on Samson, the Isles of Scilly Nowadays the Isles of Scilly remain one of the most extraordinary places to explore around the British coast, with their mixture of inhabited and uninhabited islands, beaches, rocky shores and maritime history. For current information about visiting the islands, see the official Visit Isles of Scilly website. When a secret beach was once a busy industrial site In a way, mention of Samson brings me on to another subject that surprised me during the writing of the series. Many of our truly secret, silent beaches were once very busy places. Carleon Cove, a small indentation just a couple of bays north of ever-busy Cadgwith on the Lizard, offers one of the best examples. Today it is a peaceful Cornish cove. But the nearby Poltesco Valley was once central to the British serpentine industry. Justin Whitehouse, the National Trust's head ranger on the Lizard, explained to me how the industry developed after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert became associated with serpentine during the nineteenth century. For those who don't know it, serpentine is a metamorphic rock laced with dark green veins and dotted here and there with reds and whites. “At the time there was just a small industry going on,” Justin told me. “But suddenly it had royal approval and everybody wanted serpentine.” As a result, a factory sprouted up in the valley. There would have been large stone-cutting equipment because huge boulders were moved there, strung above the river on aerial launders. They were cut, shaped and polished. So why did it all disappear? According to the story Justin told me, Queen Victoria went on holiday to Italy and encountered marble – and suddenly marble was in vogue. Nobody wanted the old-fashioned serpentine any more. It's probably a good job that happened. If the industry had continued, this peaceful valley could have become a very different place. [Read about a hike from Cadgwith to Carleon Cove here] Carleon Cove and the old serpentine workings The forgotten industries of the West Country coast The same could be said for the shale-oil industry that at one time promised to transform parts of the West Somerset coast, or the fertiliser trade that turned dozens of remote and inaccessible coves in North Cornwall and Devon into busy little harbours. This is one of the things I love about walking around the West Country. A coastline that appears completely wild can suddenly reveal the remains of a former industry. A ruined building. An old track. A quarry. A mine. A harbour that seems far too small and inaccessible to have ever been busy. Then you start imagining what the place must have been like when boats were arriving, men were working and goods were being carried up and down the cliffs. For those of us who like our natural coastlines quiet and best left to the gulls, the historic disappearance of such industries has been a saviour and salvation. But that doesn't mean we can't enjoy seeing the relics and trying to imagine what once went on in these Secret Seasides where now nothing and nobody moves at all. The West Cornish coast at Zennor Wild Pear Beach and the ghosts of old mining Go to amazing Wild Pear Beach near Combe Martin, for example, and it is difficult not to feel the ghostly presence of the silver miners of old. The North Devon coast around Combe Martin and Exmoor is spectacular enough without its history. But once you know that people were once working the minerals beneath this extraordinary landscape, the place takes on another dimension. What you tend to end up thinking is: Crikey, what a crazy place to have worked in. It must have been so dangerous and gruelling. Then you think: And how lucky I am that I can come to this lonesome beach of my own free will and relish in its beauty and grandeur without having to worry about another soul. That thought occurred to me repeatedly during the six months of Secret Seasides. And it remains one of the great pleasures of exploring the West Country coast. [Read a full description of the walk to Wild Pear Beach here.] Wild Pear Beach, North Devon Why I loved the Secret Seasides series Looking back, I think what made Secret Seasides work was that it wasn't really a search for beaches. It was a search for stories. A beach might be beautiful, but that wasn't always enough. The really memorable places had something else. Perhaps there was an old industry. Perhaps a vanished community. Perhaps a smugglers' path. Perhaps a difficult descent. Perhaps a remarkable piece of geology. Or perhaps the place was simply astonishingly quiet despite being within sight of somewhere packed with visitors. That was the real fascination. The West Country coast is not just a collection of beaches. It is a vast historical landscape running around the edge of Devon, Cornwall, Somerset and Dorset, with Exmoor and the Isles of Scilly adding their own extraordinary chapters. And the best way to discover it is often to slow down. Walk. Look. Listen. And wonder what happened there before you arrived. The beach at Port Quin, Cornwall The South West Coast Path and the search for quieter shores For anyone wanting to explore this coastline for themselves, the South West Coast Path is the obvious place to begin. The route follows the coastline around the South West, running from Minehead in Somerset through Devon and Cornwall and onwards around Dorset to Poole Harbour. It is one of Britain's great long-distance walking routes, but you don't have to tackle anything like the entire path. Some of the best coastal adventures are short walks leading to one particular cove, headland or beach. And that is one reason I have written so many coastal walks over the years. [SEE OUR SOUTH WEST COAST PATH HUB HERE] You can find current route information, walking advice and maps on the official South West Coast Path Association website. A final thought about secret places There was a curious irony at the heart of Secret Seasides. I was writing about places precisely because they were quiet. And then I was telling thousands of newspaper readers about them. Some readers thought that was a bad idea. I understood their argument. There are certainly fragile coastal environments where too many visitors can cause damage, particularly around wildlife, nesting birds, dunes and sensitive habitats. But I never saw Secret Seasides as an invitation to descend upon every remote cove in the West Country. It was an invitation to look at the coastline differently. To realise that the famous beach isn't necessarily the best beach. To understand that a footpath disappearing over a headland might lead somewhere extraordinary. To appreciate the history hidden in apparently empty landscapes. And perhaps, above all, to remember that some of Britain's greatest adventures don't require a passport. SEE OUR POST ABOUT THE NATIONAL TRUST'S AMAZING OPERATION NEPTUNE PROJECT An empty beach just west of Porthcurno, West Cornwall The West Country still has secrets I visited 29 different coastal locations during those six months. I certainly didn't discover every secret beach in Devon, Cornwall, Somerset or the Isles of Scilly. Far from it. In fact, one of the great pleasures of writing about the West Country is that the moment you think you've seen most of it, somebody tells you about another cove, another forgotten path, another beach hidden beneath another headland. And that is probably just as it should be. The coast doesn't give up all its secrets at once. Some are waiting on the other side of the headland. Some are hidden at the bottom of a valley. Some are revealed only by the tide. And some are best left as they are – quiet, difficult to reach and known principally to the gulls. I certainly found myself thinking the same thing again and again during those six months: How lucky I am that I can come to this lonesome beach of my own free will and simply enjoy its beauty and grandeur without having to worry about another soul. I wrote at the time that it probably wouldn't be too long before the newspaper returned to the coast for another series. I still wouldn't bet against it. Because when it comes to the West Country coast, there is always another secret seaside waiting to be found. SEE OUR POST ABOUT 10 GREAT WEST COUNTRY BEACHES HERE Pedn Vounder beach near Porthcurno, West Penwith

Cape Cornwall in West Penwith There’s an old saying among mariners that the land is “never so dangerous, nor ever so welcome”, as when it thrusts its great stony snout out into the deep Atlantic swells. For those of us who prefer to keep our boots on dry ground, however, the great promontories of the South West peninsula represent something altogether different. They are our ultimate vantage points, the natural balconies from which we can survey the grandest maritime theatre in northern Europe. Which is why I once devoted an entire newspaper series to the great headlands of the West Country. If the West region’s coast is a glittering coronet, then its headlands are the crown jewels. Hartland Point with Lundy in the distance The Wild Side of the South West Coast We have wonderful sandy bays, sheltered coves and picture-perfect harbours, but in summer many of those honey-pot locations can become too far busy and crowded. Headlands, by their nature and geography, act as a bold antidote to all that. Many are difficult to reach - you cannot easily wheel a family cool-box out to the end of a razor-backed promontory. You’re probably going to have to walk, following ancient tracks worn deep by coastguards, smugglers, miners, and sheep. And the rewards are worth it. Because headlands offer a sense of adventure. I often think they’re like little bits of a foreign country - rocky strewn embassies from another place. Out on those tall bold limbs, you’re treated to a real sense of wilderness. The sea is not merely a backdrop, it envelops you on three sides. At times it will fling white foam flying hundreds of feet up sheer cliff faces - or you might watch tides passing at a rate of knots you’d normally only see in mountain rivers. See our special post on the importance of the National Trust's Operation Neptune Rame Head in evening light Wildlife on the Great Promontories In such places nature still rules supreme. Headlands act like aerial motorway service stations for seabirds. Stand on almost any of our high peninsulas in spring or summer and you will see fulmars gliding effortlessly on the updrafts, their stiff wings shearing inches from the rock. Further west, you might catch the flash of a red bill and the distinctive tumbling flight of a chough. Headlands are great places for spotting a peregrine falcons. Below, in the surf and kelp forests, the dark, shiny heads of grey seals bob in the wash. If you’re really lucky, you might even spot dolphin, basking sharks, tuna, or even whales, surfacing. Headlands Written in History Headlands are also repositories of human drama. Because they command the sea lanes, mankind has always fortified them, put lights or beacons on them, or exploited them in some way. Most of our major headlands has a human story to tell… Many have Iron Age cliff castles - you’ll see the remains of their earthen ramparts crossing the narrowest necks of land. See 6 of our best Cornish Coastal Hikes here The small headland at Cadgwith Others boast Victorian lighthouses and mournful foghorn stations that once warned sailing ships off deadly lee shores, as well as eerie, concrete ruins of Second World War radar stations and gun emplacements. Brean Down is one of the first great headlands you encounter in the region. This great finger of carboniferous limestone juts one and a half miles out into the muddy waters of the Bristol Channel like a beached whale. Walk its high, grassy spine and you feel as though you are marching straight out to sea, with the Mendip Hills at your back and the Welsh coast just across the water. At its tip sits the Palmerston Fort, built in the 1860s to defend the Bristol Channel against French invasion - a complex of barracks and gun emplacements that later witnessed secret weapons testing during the Second World War. Gun emplacements at the end of Brean Down The Great Headlands of North Devon Further west on Exmoor’s coast, there’s vast and vertiginous Foreland Point, near Lynmouth, where some of the highest cliffs in England rear up from the exceptionally fierce tidal races. Steep heather-clad slopes curve scarily downwards to suddenly drop 1000 feet into the sea. Down at the end of the headland sits the white tower of the North Devon Foreland Lighthouse, serviced by a zigzag road that would give a mountain goat pause for thought. Check out some of the best North Devon coastal walks here You can see the North Devon Foreland from Lynmouth Sail on along the North Devon shore, and you’ll eventually reach the light at Bull Point where the coast changes direction to turn south. You’ll immediately encounter Morte Point - literally “the Point of Death” - jutting its jagged ridge of slate out from the sands at Woolacombe. It has claimed scores of vessels over the centuries, yet on a calm August morning in a heatwave - walking through the yellow gorse, with wheatears flitting across the turf - it is hard to imagine a more tranquil place. Same goes for the tall and majestic Baggy Point next door. Woolacombe beach from Morte Point Around Bideford Bay, Hartland Point stands as a sentinel marking the place where the Bristol Channel finally gives way to the Atlantic. Here, vast eons of geological time are on display - contorted strata twist in impossible zigzags - and all this drama is crowned by a lighthouse that once relied on a cable car to haul supplies down the vertical cliff face. Lighthouse at Hartland Point Cornwall's Mythical Headlands South-west in Cornwall, the headlands take on a mythical quality. Few places blend geology and myth quite as potently as the dark promontory at Tintagel. Connected to the mainland by only a slender isthmus - now dramatically spanned by a footbridge - this slate-ribbed headland rears up out of the Atlantic like an impregnable fortress. Which, of course, it once was. Visitors are drawn by both the romantic legend of King Arthur and the ruins of Richard of Cornwall’s 13th-century castle. New footbridge across to the headland at Tintagel A few miles down the coast, guarding the entrance to the Camel Estuary, we can explore the magnificent twin-headed bastion of Pentire Point and The Rumps. The point itself offers one of the grandest panoramas in the South West, stretching from Trevose Head north to the heights of Lundy Island. It is also a place of quiet contemplation… A plaque here marks the spot where Laurence Binyon sat in 1914 to compose his famous lines, For the Fallen. Half a mile east, you’ll see The Rumps - a dramatic, double-horned snout of rock defended by the distinct ditch-and-bank ramparts of a massive Iron Age cliff castle. A walker descends from Pentire Point In the far west vast numbers flock to Land’s End, but those of us who prefer quiet places head a few miles north to Cape Cornwall - England’s only official cape. Dominated by the lone chimney of the old St Just United mine, the Cape feels wonderfully elemental. Out to sea, there’s The Brisons - a reef of tall rocks infamous for shipwrecks - while inland the eerie, post-industrial beauty of the tin and copper mining landscape rises to the granite heights of the West Penwith moors. See places to stay along the North Cornish Coast here Cape Cornwall The Wild Headlands of South Cornwall Turn the corner, and the south coast eventually shifts from granite to the darker serpentine, quartz, and slate. The Lizard, mainland Britain’s most southerly point, offers a completely unique landscape. The bleak, but fascinating, plateau of magnesium-rich rocks supports all manner of rare plants - and always around the skirts of this vast headland you’ll see amazingly clear turquoise waters lapping in sheltered ‘zawns’ or coves. It was here that Marconi sent his pioneering radio signals across the ocean, forever changing global communications. Lizard Point, Cornwall Few headlands possess quiet the brooding majesty of the Dodman. Jutting out into Veryan Bay like the prow of a gargantuan stone battleship, this 400-foot-high bulwark is the loftiest promontory on the entire south Cornish coast. The footpaths across its broad, wildflower-strewn plateau carry you through the formidable earthen ramparts of an ancient Iron Age cliff castle, but it’s the seaward tip that will really impress. See places to stay around the Lizard here West coast of the Dodman headland There, perched on the cliff edge, stands a granite cross erected in 1896 by the local parson of Caerhays to serve as a navigational beacon or a warning to mariners. Stand beside that monolith on a breezy day, with the sweeps of Mevagissey Bay opening to the east and the coastline unfurling towards the Lizard in the west, and you’ll understand why this peaceful, wind-scoured giant inspires the few who do find their way to the end. And who could forget Rame Head, the great conical guardian standing at the gateway to Plymouth Sound? Topped by the simple stone shell of a 14th-century chapel dedicated to St Michael, Rame Head offers some of the finest maritime views to be seen anywhere. From here, watchers have kept vigil for centuries, looking out for the Spanish Armada, the return of Drake and Nelson, and the countless grey warships that have slipped in and out of Plymouth naval docks over the generations. View from the old chapel at Rame Head The Headlands of South Devon Cross to South Devon and we come to the wild schist headlands of Prawle Point (home to countless shipwrecks and strange ancient raised beaches) and its near neighbour, Start Point. The latter thrusts its sharp spine of rock down to a splendid white lighthouse. Together these twin headlands act as gatekeepers to Lyme Bay and the English Channel, while the high limestone plateau of Berry Head guards Torbay. Rising nearly 200 feet above the waves, it is home to one of Britain’s largest guillemot colonies. Berry Head also boasts a pair of Napoleonic-era forts and the shortest lighthouse in the country (it’s so high up, it needed only a stubby tower to project its light 19 miles). East along the Jurassic Coast, the white chalk stacks and dramatic red cliffs of East Devon and Dorset eventually give way to the massive headland of Portland Bill. Berry Head, near Brixham Portland Bill and the Eastern Edge of the South West It really does feel like a nation apart - a vast, wind-scoured block of pale limestone jutting far into the English Channel, where the notorious Portland Race can turn into a cauldron even on a calm day. What unites these great promontories (apart from the National Trust which owns most of the headlands mentioned) is their power to restore the human spirit. In an age when modern life can feel increasingly inauthentic and confusing, these seaborne bastions remain more-or-less unchanged. Walk out to the end of one and you can leave your worries behind. Stride, with your face to the Atlantic - the turf springing beneath your boots, the cry of gulls overhead - and you’ll hear the endless, timeless, rhythm of the ocean breaking against rock that has stood firm for hundreds of millions of years… That is when you’ll know, for sure, that headlands are among the finest places we have - the magnificent jewels of our coastal crown. Portland Bill lighthouse in a storm FAQ What are some of the best headlands to visit in South West England? Some of the most spectacular headlands described by Martin Hesp include Foreland Point, Morte Point, Hartland Point, Tintagel, Cape Cornwall, the Lizard, the Dodman, Rame Head, Prawle Point, Start Point and Berry Head. What makes the headlands of South West England special? The great headlands combine dramatic cliffs, Atlantic views, wildlife, geology and human history. Many also contain ancient cliff castles, lighthouses, fortifications and the remains of historic industries. Where can you find wild coastal walks in South West England? The South West has an enormous variety of coastal walking, including headland walks on Exmoor, North Devon, Cornwall, South Devon and the Jurassic Coast. The more remote promontories can offer a greater sense of wilderness than the region's busiest beaches and harbours. Which South West headlands are good for wildlife? Headlands can be excellent places to see seabirds such as fulmars, choughs and peregrine falcons, while seals, dolphins, basking sharks, tuna and whales may sometimes be seen from the coast. What is the most southerly point of mainland Britain? The Lizard in Cornwall is the most southerly point of mainland Britain. Its unusual geology and clear turquoise waters make it one of the most distinctive landscapes on the South West coast. Portland Bill in a storm

West Penwith has always felt to me like a foreign country, and St Ives cradles the quintessence of that exoticism by the bucket, spade and brush full. St Ives at Christmas I've believed this ever since I first started travelling "abroad" to West Cornwall as a long-haired youngster in the early 1970s — and I think it just as strongly today. If you attempt to drive into St Ives at the height of summer, prepare yourself: I'd rather negotiate Naples at rush hour. The civilised way to arrive is by branch line from St Erth. That journey alone prepares you for the sheer brilliance of the place. You can leave the rest of Britain under weeping, overcast skies, change onto the coastal train, and step out into blinding Mediterranean light. Out on sunglasses-are-compulsory Porthmeor Beach, the Atlantic rollers draw surfers by the hundred, while behind them sits Tate St Ives — an iconic landmark, even if its modern artworks occasionally baffle. Built across a wedge-shaped peninsula, the town has an extraordinary collection of beaches and headlands. There's wild Porthmeor facing the full force of the Atlantic; sheltered Porthgwidden; the great sweep of Porthminster; the harbour, where at low tide holidaymakers can build sandcastles among resting fishing boats; and The Island, the rocky headland separating the wild Atlantic surf from the calmer waters of St Ives Bay. See our special Cornwall and Isles of Scilly page for more informative articles But to really understand this corner of Cornwall, you need to lace up your boots and get out onto the coast paths, beaches and granite hills. Here are five of my favourite walks starting from, or close to, St Ives. 1. Lelant to St Ives: a coastal walk with a railway return Distance: 3.5 – 4 miles Difficulty: Easy to moderate Start: Lelant Church Finish: St Ives This is one of the cleverest ways of walking into St Ives because you can let the train take the strain on the way back. Train on the line between Lelant and St Ives, A railway executive once asked me to stop using that catchphrase because it was "old hat". Well, so am I — and coastal walkers often face the problem of a one-way trek, so an easy rail return is a blessing. Starting at ancient Lelant Church, the route heads towards the mouth of the Hayle Estuary, passing Lelant Towans and eventually reaching the huge sweep of Porth Kidney Sands. From here the coast becomes increasingly dramatic. Carrack Gladden is a high, triangular headland offering superb views back across the bay, while the route continues towards Carbis Bay and Porthminster Point. One of the memorable sights is the old Huer's Hut, where lookouts once shouted and hollered to direct the fishing fleet towards the vast shoals of pilchards that could turn the entire bay red. Eventually the path drops down to Porthminster Beach, conveniently beside St Ives station. From here you can simply catch the train back to Lelant. Why do it? Because you get beaches, cliffs, history, the Hayle Estuary and one of Cornwall's most scenic little railway journeys in a single walk. See our post on the importance of the National Trust's Operation Neptune in Cornwall St Ives from the beach near Lelant 2. St Ives to the wild western coast Distance: 3.5 – 5 miles circular Difficulty: Moderate Start and finish: Porthmeor Beach / Tate St Ives If St Ives itself becomes too busy, there is a remarkably easy way to escape the crowds. Head west past Tate St Ives and Porthmeor Beach and, almost immediately, the manicured world of the holiday town begins to fall away. The coast towards Zennor feels completely different — less like standard Britain and more like a lost granite kingdom. DH Lawrence and W.H. Hudson were among those who walked these cliffs, and it isn't difficult to understand why the landscape has attracted writers and artists for generations. The route passes Clodgy Point, where climbing over the grassy bluff opens huge views towards the Penwith Moors. There are also some wonderfully eccentric sights along the way, including a famously unusual stone-walled allotment made from salvaged flotsam. Beyond that, the National Trust headlands lead towards Hor Point, Trowan Cliff and Pen Enys Point, looking down into the wild solitude of Polgassick Cove. READ ABOUT A CIRCULAR WALK AT ZENNOR HERE You can turn inland and follow ancient field paths back towards St Ives, passing old mine workings, granite farmsteads and quiet countryside. Why do it? For the transformation from busy seaside town to wild West Penwith in the space of a few minutes' walking. Around the westerly corner from St Ives, 3. Godrevy: lighthouse, reefs and shipwrecks Distance: 2.5 miles circular Difficulty: Easy Start and finish: National Trust car park near Gwithian Bridge Across St Ives Bay from the town stands one of Cornwall's most recognisable landmarks: Godrevy Lighthouse. (See our post on the life and times of a Cornish lighthouse keeper here) It is a beautiful place to walk, but the waters around Godrevy have a much darker history. The maritime records of Cornwall are full of stories of ships being wrecked along this coast. At Godrevy the offshore reef known as The Stones claimed numerous vessels, most famously the screw steamer Nile in 1854. Of around 60 passengers and crew, only one body was recovered. The tragedy helped lead to the construction of Godrevy Lighthouse in 1859. The walk begins near Gwithian Bridge and crosses the dunes of Gwithian Towans before reaching the coast. The Red River runs across the sands here, its name recalling the days when tin mining upstream could turn the water bright crimson. From Godrevy Point there are superb views across to the lighthouse standing guard over The Stones. The route continues towards the Knavocks, an area of wild heathland before turning inland across the downs. Why do it? For one of the great combinations of Cornish scenery: huge sandy beaches, dunes, heathland, cliffs and the iconic Godrevy Lighthouse. 4. Godolphin Hill: one of West Cornwall's great viewpoints Distance: 3.5 miles circular Difficulty: Moderate Start and finish: National Trust car park at Leeds Shaft / Mount Whistle Scotland can keep its 3,000-foot Munros. We have magnificent, solitary hillocks in the West Country that pack just as much punch. READ THE FULL DESCRIPTION OF THE HIKE AROUND GODOLPHIN HERE The old house at Godolphin, Godolphin Hill rises to 517 feet above the surrounding landscape and, on a clear day, provides one of the most astonishing panoramic views in West Cornwall. From the summit you can see across huge swathes of the county: St Michael's Mount and Mount's Bay to the west, Goonhilly Down to the south, and the Penwith Moors, Hayle Towans and Carn Brea to the north. But this is not simply a walk to a viewpoint. The route also takes you through some fascinating mining country. Near the start is the Great Work Mine and its 1829 granite engine house and chimney. There are reminders everywhere of the extraordinary industrial history of this part of Cornwall. Godolphin Hill John Leland, travelling through Cornwall in 1538, wrote that there were "no greater Tynne works yn al Cornwall" than those belonging to the Godolphin family. The walk eventually descends towards Godolphin House before looping back through quiet lanes and ancient granite stiles. Why do it? Because it combines a relatively short hill walk with an enormous view and a fascinating glimpse into Cornwall's mining past. 5. St Michael's Way: walking across West Cornwall Distance: Around 5 – 6 miles for this section Difficulty: Moderate Start: Lelant Church or Carbis Bay Finish: Trencrom area / Bowl Rock St Michael's Way is one of Cornwall's most unusual long-distance paths, following an ancient route across the county between Lelant and St Michael's Mount. This is the first section, from the coast near St Ives. READ ABOUT THE AMAZING AFTERNOON TEA AT ST MICHAEL'S MOUNT HERE Carbis Bay The medieval story behind it is particularly intriguing. Pilgrims travelling towards France and ultimately Santiago de Compostela could arrive on Cornwall's north coast and cross the peninsula overland rather than risk sailing around Land's End. This section begins around Lelant and heads inland through a very different landscape from the coast. One of the first landmarks is Knill's Monument, a curious 50-foot granite pyramid erected in 1782 by John Knill, an eccentric customs officer who left money for a remarkable five-yearly ceremony. The route then follows quiet green lanes and woodland hollows, eventually reaching the granite country around Trencrom Hill. Here you enter the landscape of Cornish legend. Bowl Rock is a huge granite boulder associated with the story of the giants of Trencrom and St Michael's Mount. The full St Michael's Way continues across Cornwall towards Marazion, but even this first section makes an excellent walk in its own right. View of distant Trencrom Hill from St Michaels Mount, Why do it? For the combination of ancient pilgrimage, Cornish folklore, granite landscapes and quiet countryside — a completely different experience from walking the St Ives coastline. Which St Ives walk should you choose? If you only have time for one, I'd choose Lelant to St Ives. It gives you beaches, the Hayle Estuary, cliffs, history and the wonderful little railway journey back to your starting point. For something wilder, take the St Ives western coast walk. For a shorter and easier outing, Godrevy is hard to beat, particularly if you love beaches and dramatic coastal scenery. If views are your priority, make for Godolphin Hill. And if you want to discover the older, stranger side of Cornwall, follow part of St Michael's Way across the peninsula. The great thing about St Ives is that you don't have to travel far to find a completely different landscape. Within a few miles of the town you can walk beside huge Atlantic beaches, climb granite hills, explore ancient pilgrimage routes, discover the remains of Cornwall's mining past and stand beneath one of Britain's most recognisable lighthouses. That is why, after more than half a century of visiting West Cornwall, I still find myself wanting to put on the walking boots and head out again. Check out our post focussing on 4 great coastal walks in West Cornwall