Thursday, October 18, 2007

As We Were Going to St. Ives




My daughter Zoe is a fairly new English driver and I think she does remarkably well. Driving here is an adventure as most of the streets and country lanes were not made for today's traffic. We were going to St. Ives where my husband Jack was going to have lunch with the local Rotary Club. Not wanting to drive through the center-of-town traffic, we chose a back road. Zoe's Mazda is not a large car, but there were places where we could stick our arms out either side of the car and touch the Cornish hedges! Luckily, we didn't meet anyone coming toward us. The Rotary meeting was held in Tregenna Castle Hotel. Yes, it was originally a castle, or large manor house. The family wasn't royal, just rich. Today it offers many amenities including indoor and outdoor swimming pools, tennis courts, gardens and a golf course. Maybe the finest amenity is the view -- a sweeping panorama of the coast with St. Ives as the feature attraction. St. Ives itself is full of touristy shops and was bustling even on a week day. The clouds faded away today but, even though the sun shone brightly, the breeze was brisk. On Porthmeor Beach, kids wearing sweaters waded out into the water. There was even an intrepid surfer riding the waves that washed up on the sandy beach. St. Ives has much to recommend it but I didn't see anything I'd trade for our lovely view of Mounts Bay in Penzance.

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