Christmas in Devon – driving around Cornwall | alison richards

It was finally a lovely day, with the sun shining and blue skies.

At the beginning of the year when I hired a car and drove down to Devon, I had wanted to drive down further to visit St Ives and some other places in Cornwall. That day had been a complete wash out, quite literally, as it was pouring with rain and British roads don't seem to cope with having lots of rain all at the same time - drainage sucks. So I'd called it quits.

I had told my parents this and they kindly offered to drive me around to some of the places that I'd wanted to see. It was a long way away with a lot of driving so we set off early and got to St Ives at 9:30am.

I'd never been to St Ives before but it was a really lovely place. We parked then made for St Nicholas Chapel, an old little church on top of a hill attached to the mainland by a little isthmus.

The church near where we parked. Winter sunlight is so nice!

The path wended its way up this hill, which had mushrooms growing in it

The isthmus connecting the hill to the land

After leaving the church, we walked back towards the town itself. It is so nice, with lots of tiny alleys and old "fishing village" houses. We walked through the little lanes to the harbour, which was sparkling in the winter sunshine.

27th December meant there was a lot of Christmas cheer around!

After seeing St Ives, we walked back to the car and head off again.

We decided to drive all the way around the bottom of Cornwall, down the B3306 road, which was truly a stunning road to drive in sunshine and blue skies! There were some tin mine ruins that we had a look at too, which was interesting. Around Cornwall is where the TV show Poldark is filmed, apparently (don't watch it).

We went to a pub along the B3306 road for lunch, but I will not mention the name because it was one of the worst lunches I've ever had - we would have been better to go to the Co-op nearby to pick up some sandwiches. Anyway, we kept going along and after all the pretty scenery, we ended up in Marazion, the location of St Michael's Mount, Britain's answer to Mont Saint Michel in France. We parked and got out to walk along the beach. We didn't go into the church on the island, just admired it from afar.

We went down to walk along the beach. The tide was out quite far

We were a long way from home so it was time to head back. It took a couple of hours but we made it. It was a long way, yes, but such a nice day for it so I'm glad we went!