GLOBETROTTER: Harbour delights (From Oxford Mail)

GLOBETROTTER: Harbour delights

4:00pm Saturday 10th December 2011 in Travel Reviews By Gill Jaggers

The guide at Geevor Tin Mine said: “If you want good weather, don’t come to Cornwall in the school holidays!”

Good advice, but not helpful under the circumstances. I was already there.

Family holidays are fraught enough, and as the kids get older and able to voice the opinion that they perhaps might rather sit in a bath of cold custard than go on holiday with the people they’ve been squabbling with for the last 12 months, add in the inclement weather of autumn (okay, cold and wet), then the choice of where to go becomes nigh-on impossible.

I had been hesitant about taking teens to Cornwall under these conditions, so it was with trepidation that I left Oxford with family and luggage crammed into the car.

Five hours later we arrived at a house overlooking Porthleven, the most southerly working harbour in Great Britain, and a picture postcard town that tumbles down the steep sides of an inlet until it reaches the walls bounding the crashing grey waves of the ocean and a score of tiny colourful boats.

Our cottage, located as it was above the harbour, gave a perfect view of little fishing boats perilously putting out to sea in the choppy waters, and tiny dinghies bobbing about under anchor waiting for calmer weather.

So having been instantly charmed by the view, we turned our attention to the accommodation, which was wonderfully luxurious with ensuite bathrooms for each bedroom and a spacious and very comfortable lounge diner and galley kitchen. All had top-quality furnishings and fittings which prompted the teens to immediately decide they would like to live there, especially as a welcome tray greeted us with tea, biscuits, milk and all things comforting.

The relief that things started so well began to wane, however, when I saw the rain. What on earth were we going to do for a rainy week in Cornwall?

Thankfully, the cottage provided a handy pack full of information about the local area (restaurants, attractions, walks, beaches and activities) so we immediately scoured it for ideas.

Fortunately, and to my huge relief, I discovered we were in reach of most of Cornwall’s main attractions. Our home away from home, at the very tip of Cornwall between Penzance and The Lizard, looked like a good bet. But which of its attractions were rainy day options? Well, quite a few it seems, so long as the rain is not a downpour.

Predictably, the town itself is very pretty, the mouth of the harbour being punctuated by the 70ft Bickford-Smith Institute Victorian clock tower on one side and the 17th century Ship Inn clinging to the rock face on the other.

It has a good collection of shops, restaurants, cafes and galleries which, even out of season, are open and welcoming.

Quayside Fish, which sports a swordfish head out front, not only sells that day’s catch, but offers a postal service so you can enjoy the flavour of Porthleven back at home.

Places to eat are in abundant supply and we tried Blue Haze on the harbour side, which offered a wide-ranging menu to suit all tastes.

A stroll around the town’s tiny backstreets (with brolly) revealed some hidden gems of galleries, pubs and even a reclamation artist’s gallery in a small plot of land.

The Wrecker’s Yard holds a collection of bizarre creations made from the detritus thrown up on to the beach – dogs made of old wellies and mop heads, birds made of driftwood, and endless balls with comic faces spilling over and out of the artist’s workshop for passers by to enjoy.

Twenty minutes away, at Pendeen, is Geevor, the last Cornish tin mine to close. Of course, because it’s underground, it was also out of the rain.

Photographic portraits of the last miners and the ‘Dry’ where they prepared for and cleaned up after a shift had clothes, boots and helmets as if abandoned. The place looks like it was last occupied only yesterday.

A detailed (and interactive) exhibition of Cornish mining with former miners as guides for underground tours of a few of the hundreds of miles of shafts that reach out under the sea beyond the coast, make it well worth a visit.

The Eden Project in Bodelva is one of Cornwall’s major attractions built in a disused clay mine and featuring the iconic biomes – again perfect for the inclement weather as they act like giant umbrellas.

You can walk around the amazing collections of plants from tropical and Mediterranean climes and even climb to the very top of the great bubbles and look down on the mass of greenery from above, taking in a spectacular sight of massive trees splashed with bright flowers.

They even have refreshment stops in there with a massive pizzeria and bakery between the biomes and smaller stalls inside offering tropical fruit smoothies and al fresco fare. In fact, the best Cornish cream tea of the holiday was found in the Eden Bakery, which had a big thumbs-up from everyone.

Unbelievably, the rain stopped long enough for a visit to Land’s End. Avoiding the Visitor Centre, souvenir shops and hot dog stands, we veered toward the coast to enjoy a walk along the well-trod paths and be buffeted by a stiff breeze. This was more like it – in a makeshift picnic on a cliff edge we lay back on the grass and watched seagulls flying into the wind above our heads.

Really, who needs the sun?

A cloudless summer holiday is, of course, everyone’s ideal, but next time I’m faced with the prospect of a wet week in England I’ll have an umbrella in one hand, a guide book in the other and a big smile on my face.