Travel

Weekend in North Cornwall, UK: What To See & Do

I think I would go as far to say that North Cornwall is one of my favourite places in the UK - if not the world. When you come to Cornwall, you leave the rest of the civilised world behind. 

Place names change from soft, chocolate box-sounding places (like Clovelly and Appledore) and become other-worldly, like something out of a J.R.R. Tolkien novel. Trebetherick, Zennor, Nanjizal.

There's a reason why the residents of Cornwall are constantly campaigning for independence from the rest of the UK. Because it's not like anywhere else.

In the summer, it's crowded. Hoards of British tourists gather on Cornwall's beaches to eat ice cream for six weeks in July and August. But once they have gone, Cornwall returns to its beautiful quiet rural state - the turbulent Atlantic, imposing craggy cliffs, empty beaches.

The best months to visit are June and September - when the waves are good, the weather is warm, but you can avoid the queues.

VISIT

CYCLE THE CAMEL TRAIL

It’s a well-known route, but such a great thing to do if you’ve never been to Cornwall before. It’s a very easy traffic-free cycle path on an old railway line that traces the River Camel from its mouth at Padstow through Wadebridge all the way to Bodmin. I’d recommend parking in Wadebridge, hiring a bike from the start of the trail and cycling to Padstow with a stop at Rick Stein’s Fish and Chips (by far the best chippy in town).

WALK FROM DAYMER BAY TO ROCK

If you’re looking for a beach walk with great views, park up at Daymer Bay and walk along the beach to Rock. It takes about 45 minutes one way and the beach is also dog-friendly. If you haven’t visited Padstow yet, you can board the foot ferry over for a stroll around town and Rick Stein’s fish and chips (as mentioned above). You can also stop at The Mariners in Rock for a drink if you’re short on time. If it’s high tide, follow the coastal path through the dunes.

HEAD DOWN TO PORT ISAAC

Port Isaac is famous for home to the ITV drama Doc Martin, which is set in this very village. Heaving during the summer months, it’s best to visit off season when the cobbled streets are less crowded. You won’t need more than half a day here, but it’s worth a look in the shops and a pint overlooking the harbour at The Golden Lion. Just around the corner, you can go for a swim at Port Gaverne.

SURF AT CRANTOCK

Just around the corner from Newquay, Crantock is one of the best places to surf in the area. The waves are rarely crowded and it has a great peeling longboarder friendly wave near the mouth of the river. Sheltered when the wind is blowing a hooley elsewhere. Works best at mid to high tide. Even if you don’t surf, Crantock is gorgeous on a sunny day. Bring your National Trust sticker if you have one for the car park.

VISIT BEDRUTHAN STEPS

Bedruthan Steps is a famously gorgeous with dark craggy cliffs and a pristine beach, dotted with towerin sea stacks. Victorian legend says that at high tide, a giant would use these sea stacks as stepping stones to walk along the coastline.

You can access the beach at low tide, but it’s the views from the coastal path that are most stunning. It’s a half an hour walk to Mawgan Porth (make sure you take a look inside Roo’s Beach, my favourite shop in the area) or admire the views by heading the other direction towards the headland.

TRY A BEACH YOGA CLASS

The lovely Aimee from Synergy Yoga holds outdoor yoga classes early on a Saturday morning. Park up on the Esplanade at the south end of Fistral Beach and you’ll find everyone lying on their mats on the flat grassy bit overlooking the beach. Classes run during the summer months, depending on the weather. Find out more info on the Synergy Yoga Facebook Page.

EAT

Little Plates, Wadebridge

This modern tapas bar is one of my favourite places for dinner in the whole of Cornwall. The menu changes seasonally. Make sure you order the fish tacos.

It’s very reasonably priced – I usually spend around £15-20 per person (not including drinks). Thursdays is Mexican night complete with tacos and tequila. Booking ahead is a must.

Gilmores Golf, Newquay

If you want excellent Cali-Mexican style food with a side of mini golf, then this is the place to come. Founded by Cornish entrepreneur Elsie Pinninger, Gilmores is great for a quick coffee or a full blown meal, complete with Mexican cocktails and a fine burrito (or two).

The Jam Jar, Newquay

If you are into the chia seed/cacao healthy eating trend right now, then you need to head to The Jam Jar. It’s a cosy little bolt hole stacked with surf magazines, serving coffee, smoothies, gluten-free cakes and toasted bagels.

I had the Bounty Bliss smoothie – made with coconut milk, banana, agave syrup, and cacao, topped with an edible flower – plus an avocado, cream cheese and smoked salmon bagel. Delicious.

Strong AdolfOs, Wadebridge

Just off the A39, you'll spot a huge retro American CAFE sign suspended above a wooden Scandinavian looking building. 

This is Strong Adolfos, a hipster-style cafe with delicious food (including plenty of vegetarian options, smoothies and plenty of gluten-free options.

We recommend trying their slow cooked dahl. It’s not cheap, but it is tasty. Poke your head around the deli and interiors shop next door before you leave.

St Tudy Inn, St Tudy

We first came here for Sunday lunch and my boyfriend said it was the best Sunday lunch he has ever had. Tucked away in the tiny village of St Tudy, chef Emily Scott set up this pub restaurant earlier this year with roaring success.

Think cosy modern country interior with Farrow & Ball painted walls and very polite staff. There are great choices for vegetarians – I particularly liked their aubergine and summer vegetable lasagna. Lunch is amazing value for money, while the evening meals are delicious but a little more pricey.

DRINK

Bedruthan Hotel Cocktail Bar, Mawgan Porth

The Bedruthan Hotel might be known primarily as a family hotel, but the cocktail bar really is something special. There is no menu – resident mixologist Ian will simply ask what flavours you like and concoct a drink from his homemade bitters and liqueurs. With amazing views over Mawgan Porth beach, it is well worth a visit. 

The Ship Inn, Wadebridge

The Ship Inn is owned by the same people as Little Plates. It’s a great place for an evening drink if you want a traditional pub, filled with a nice mix of locals and tourists. The food is also very good, if you’re looking for a decent pub meal.

SHOP

Roos' Beach, Porth

This shop is can only be summed up in one word: fun. It's a surf shop but without any of your usual big brands in sight. Think pineapple bracelets, beeswax candles, colourful kaftans and pink suede boots. 

MMW By Revolver, Newquay

MMW is one of those shops you will step into and immediately want to buy everything. From the Pendleton rugs to the glossy surf magazines and candles to the unusual array of women's clothing, it's a surf shop with a modern twist. Warning: this place is seriously dangerous for your bank balance.

Want To Try Yoga At Home? This Is The Best Online Yoga Class....

I’ve been looking for an online yoga class for a long time – for those times when you’re living in a new place and haven’t found a class yet or you’re travelling and need some guidance on the move.

I was reading this article on keeping fit for winter on Cooler and came across Yoga With Adriene. She runs a YouTube channel with free yoga classes for you to practice at home. They range from beginner tutorials to forty minute vinyasa sessions.

I particularly like the fact that she does classes suited to your moods, yoga for when you are sick, for the mornings, for when you’re feeling the winter blues, for hangovers, for runners. Adriene doesn’t take the whole practice too seriously and gets that maybe you’re not that into the hippy dippy spiritual side of yoga (but also embraces it if you do!) That’s my idea of a good yoga tutor.

Why Living In The Alps Is The Best Kind Of Lifestyle

The season is slowly coming to an end – and I’m already starting to miss the mountains.

My life before moving here was quite different. Waking up at 6am, riding an hour on a busy commuter train into London and eating breakfast at my desk by 8.30am.

The beauty of working remotely from the Alps is I have so much more time to myself in the morning. I get to practice yoga, meet up with a group of girls to get sweaty with circuit training, go snowshoeing – all before sitting down at my desk at home to work 9.30am.

vita-coco-cafe

Yoga is the number one thing that gets me up and awake in the morning. But sometimes you need something else to wake you up, right? I find coffee a bit strong and overpowering in the mornings, but I’ve started hopping on the coconut water band wagon – and I absolutely love it.

Vita Coco have brought out their new flavour – Vita Coco Cafe – it’s contains 100% natural coconut water plus a shot of a espresso to give you that much-needed energy boost in the morning.

Number one tip? Serve it ice cold. We’ve wedged a couple in the snow outside before to keep them cool. When I’ve spent too much time in the shower and don’t have time to wait for the coffee to brew, it’s ideal to grab out of the fridge or throw in your backpack.

After that, it’s back to editing the magazine I work for, Cooler, before squeezing in a run or a walk up to our favourite mountain hut for lunch – La Crapahute. The pace in the Alps is something different altogether. Life is more about getting outdoors and being active, rather than sitting in front of the TV.

What do you find wakes you up in the morning?

#lessbrewingmoredoing

This blog post was sponsored by Vita Coco Cafe

Wild Camping In The Outer Hebrides

It’s 4pm on a Friday. I should be in the office. Instead, I’m sat on the edge of a cliff looking over a deserted beach with a beer in hand, watching the surf roll in below. This is the Isle of Lewis and Harris, the most north-westerly island in Britain, and there’s not a soul in sight.

It all started with a competition. One Wednesday night after a few beers, I entered a competition to win a weekend’s stay in a high-tech inflatable tent from Heimplanet. You just had to pick a destination in the UK you’d like to visit and say why.

I pulled up Google Maps. With the same deliberation that a monkey might give a dart flung at a dartboard, I chose the Outer Hebrides. A week later, I received an email saying I’d won. “Shit!” I texted my boyfriend Ed, “Now we actually have to go to the Outer Hebrides.”

I’d done no research. The flights were gobsmackingly expensive. All I knew was it’s very far away and they chain swings up in playgrounds on Sundays so children can’t play on the ‘day of rest’ – and I wasn’t even sure if this was true.

Three months later, we touched down in Stornoway airport on a tiny 36-man propeller plane. Air Traffic Control was waving to the pilot as we came to a halt. I could tell already this was going to be a place like no other.

Read the full piece on Mpora.com. Photos by Nina Zietman.

Is This The Best Place To Work In The World?

When you work remotely, things can get kind of weird. You start wearing really strange combinations of clothes. Singing to yourself becomes a regular occurrence because, y’know, no one is there to see or hear you mimicking Mariah Carey. Showering? Who needs showering?

There are definite perks to not commuting to an office everyday, but where does the balance lie? What would the ideal workplace be?

People often say things like ‘near the beach’ or ‘with sleeping pods for daytime naps’ or even just ‘with a decent coffee machine’. Well, I’ve come across somewhere with all of this…

Introducing The Surf Office. It’s a surf house located in Santa Cruz, California with co-working space for freelancers to come and work with others. It’s got a large communal work area with Skype conference rooms, a yoga room for post-work sessions, surfboard storage room because there’s a friendly reef break just 2 minutes walk away.

After work you can go for a hike, grab food from the organic supermarket down the road, head to the local brewery or just grab a drink in the surf house with your co-workers. The idea is you break up the monotony of a normal working day with fun, outdoor activities.

As someone who is now working remotely, this sounds like an awesome idea. It’s a chance to meet other people, get that work-life balance that we’re all hankering after. After all you can’t dance around in your pyjamas to the Frozen soundtrack with peanut butter on a spoon while co-working, can you…

The best news? They’ve got another Surf Office located in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria. So c’mon then Europeans, when are we going?

Why You Should Go Surfing In Southern Portugal

We were invited by the very kind Clem from Bura Surfhouse to visit their surfhouse in Lagos, Portugal last month – for a long weekend of eating piri piri prawns, surfing and exploring the coastline.

You can read the full article here. In the meantime, these are reasons why you need to get down to that sunny, sunny end of Portugal…

It stays warm all year round

Well, the Portuguese would disagree with you here. But for us sun-starved Brits, 19 degrees in November is not bad going.

The waves are pumping throughout autumn and winter months

It can get big. Like really big. But the beauty of the Algarve is if the waves are too big on the west Atlantic coast, you can head around Cape St. Vincent and explore the more sheltered beach breaks along the south coast.

The people are so friendly

We stayed at the Bura Surfhouse and felt so welcomed, we were pretty much ready to uproot our lives and move their. Lively group meals with delicious Piri Piri prawns,  an outdoor pool, sunshine and a surf-hungry crew, ready to pile into a van and head for the beach – what more could you ask for? Check out their website here.

Portuguese food is really, really good

Pastel de natas (Portuguese custard tarts) are addictive, as Clem will testify. The seafood comes fresh from the market every day. There’s even a place that serves homemade olive oil and tomato flavoured ice creams. Yep, really.

It’s cheap!

Compared to other European destinations, Lagos is not too pricey – particularly in off season (from mid September onwards). Prices for accommodation drop and the beaches are way less crowded. Plus, some of the best experiences are totally free…

There’s plenty to do, even if you don’t fancy surfing

A few of our favourite expeditions included travelling around with TJ’s adventure crew eating mangos and exploring the caves along the south coast, browsing the fish market in Lagos, and walking along the cliffs overlooking Porto de Mos near Lagos.

It’s beautiful

As I said before, crowd-free Lagos in autumn is the Algarve at its best. You can really appreciate the beauty of the coastline without hundreds of families with screaming children clogging up the beaches.

You might even see dolphins…

We went on a stand-up paddleboard expedition from David with SUP Lagos – and were lucky enough to spot around 30 dolphins swimming on by!

How To Make Your Own Adventure In The City: The Urban Hike

I used to think hikes were for boring old people with green anoraks, bird-watching books and ugly boots. People like my parents. No fourteen year old wants to spend a Sunday traipsing around the Chilterns with their parents.

I could never have imagined a decade on I’d go hiking myself – for fun – without even the promise of two Scotch pancakes sandwiched together with Nutella (a family favourite) at the end of it.

When my friend Chloe came up with the idea of an Urban Hike, it was hard to say no. The idea was she would plan a route from Notting Hill in West London to Tower Hill in East London, stopping off at unusual, lesser known attractions along the way.

We started off at a cute Italian coffee shop – La Caffettiera on Kensington Church Street with pastries and coffee, toured through Kensington to Brompton Cemetery where Emmeline Pankhurst is buried. Here we also met a man who walks his blue parrots here every day. They even sit outside on lamp posts waiting for him when he goes to Sainsburys!

Then down through Chelsea onto the King’s Road where we were shouted at by taxi drivers, spotted food critic AA Gill and drank prosecco at a local food market near Sloane Square.

Next up past the swanky shops on Sloane Street to Hyde Park where we collided with the finals of an international triathlon competition.

This was followed by a jaunt past the Ritz, through the famous Burlington Arcade towards Soho where we ate a lunch of fried chicken washed down with American craft beer at Jackson & Rye.

Feeling a little drowsy after all the food and beer, we stopped off at the famous Algerian Coffee Store for a latte (it only costs £1.20 and is home to hundreds of types of coffee) – before hurrying down towards Hatchard’s, the oldest bookshop in the UK.

Then on to Fleet Street to climb up Monument before it closed. The view from the top is pretty spectacular. We finished by strolling along past to Tower Hill to our final stop, Wilton’s the oldest surviving grand music hall in the world, dating back to 1859. They still have gigs and music nights on here today.

For someone who calls herself a Londoner, the Urban Hike was a total eye opener. I saw places in the London that I never knew existed. Armed with water bottles and rucksacks, it felt like a real expedition – passing council estates and cemeteries, glamorous shop fronts, gay bars and office blocks on the way.

We met a few characters, argued with angry taxi drivers, ate doughnuts in Sloane Square, (nearly) went for a swim in the Serpentine and got a certificate for climbing the 311 stairs to the top of Monument. Three of us even bumped into acquaintances we hadn’t seen in ages. Who says you need countryside to have an adventure?

It took us around eight hours round trip to walk from Notting Hill to Tower Hill (with lots of long leisurely stops in between). Here’s the (rough) route in case you want to copy us… I’d highly recommend it!

5 Things You Should Do In Montenegro

Back in April, I read a blog that said Kotor in Montenegro had the most beautiful scenery the writer had seen since New Zealand. New Zealand. I knew we had to go.

So we flew from London to Dubrovnik and jumped in a transfer car to spend five days in the old town of Kotor, a walled city protected by UNESCO. It felt like Italy, warrens of old passageway opening out into squares each with its own illuminated church, wine bars and restaurants.

You’ll find yacht-owning billionaires alongside backpackers here, attracted to the beauty of the town and the cheap food and wine. Here are a few things we’d recommend doing while in Montenegro…

1. Climb Kotor’s Castle of San Giovanni

You can’t miss the castle. It towers over the old town of Kotor, perched high above in the mountains. It’s 1,350 steps to the ruins at top, guaranteed to get you sweating. En route, you’ll find a tiny gilded chapel, a sketchy looking bridge and amazing views down the valley across the water. Go late in the afternoon/evening to avoid getting caught in the blazing heat.

2. Visit Sveti Stefan

You’ve probably seen photos of Sveti Stefan before. It’s your archetypal Mediterranean island, originally a fishing village dotted with stone cottages and winding streets. While it still holds the look of a fishing village from afar, up close we discovered it’s now a luxury hotel. Apparently Djokovic got married there a few weeks earlier.

You can only visit the island by appointment or if you have a reservation in one of the hotel restaurants. They have their own beach outside which you can only sit on if you pay €50 per person (!) for a sun lounger.

We ended up getting a hotel reservation and sitting on the leafy terrace outside watching the sun set. The food was delicious – seafood spaghetti with puttanesca sauce – expensive by Montenegrin standards but not far off what you’d pay for an average meal in London.

3. Take a boat ride to Our Lady Of The Rocks

Our hostel owner organised a private boat ride for us around the bay, stopping off to swim and drink sweet, dark Montenegrin coffee. We also dropped by Our Lady Of The Rocks, a unique church built on an island in the middle of the water.

Legend has it, the local people created the island by dropping rocks in the same spot year after year. Eventually they stacked up to make the island the church stands on today. Every year on 22 July, people still go and drop rocks in the same spot as tradition.

The present church was built in 1632 with a strange mosque-like dome. Apparently it was a deliberate attempt by the architect to fool Muslim invaders into thinking the Christian building was a mosque!

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4. Hire kayaks

Another great way to explore the Bay of Kotor is by kayak. We paid €14 for two hours rental and easily paddled up to the bend in the valley before stopping to sunbathe on one of the pebble beaches nearby.

5. Go canyoning

This was the one activity we didn’t get a chance to do – but I’ve heard great things about canyoning near Kotor. It basically involves climbing through canyons, jumping off cliffs, abseiling down waterfalls and swimming through the rivers. It’s a full day excursion and costs around €70 including transportation to the site. Definitely on my list for next time.

HOW TO GET THERE: We flew with easyJet to Dubrovnik and got a transfer with a taxi company, Intravel(recommended on a TripAdvisor message board). They were very reliable and €220 for five people for a return 100 minute journey. We thought this was pretty well priced in comparison to the bus, which would have taken twice as long.

STAY: Old Town Hostel in Kotor. Big modern rooms and communal area in the lobby was decked out with magazines, good WiFi and a pinboard filled with thank you letters from previous guests. Plus it’s super cheap!

EAT: Grab breakfast from the bakery just inside the main gates and eat a giant bowl of pasta with red wine at Bocalibre for dinner.

WHEN TO GO: May to September. We went in July and it was HOT!