We had another great breakfast at Tregoose and then drove over to The Lost Gardens of Heligan. What an amazing place… we could have spent a whole day there, but could only fit in about 3 hrs.
Someone is sporting her new ‘wellies’ and could swear someone was looking over her shoulder!
Built in the mid-1800’s when there was strong rivalries between the wealthy landowners to import exotic plants and trees, it fell into disarray and abandonment due to WWI. Within the last 10-15 years, the current owners have resurrected a portion of the magnificent gardens that had been lost for so long.
One of the most spectacular sections is called the Jungle, as it is filled with plants, trees and flowers that you would think would only be living in the tropics.
Giant rhubarb growing 20 feet tall, enormous ferns, tropical flowering shrubs.
Enormous Redwood trees, mixed in with Palm, Ginko and the New Zealand Monkey Puzzle tree.
While the focus was mostly on flowers and plants throughout the gardens, they did have some areas to see the local wildlide and a dovecote.
Amazing view across the fields to the English Channel.
There were so many different and beautiful flowers and shrubs in the ‘jungle’, I could only include a handful.
After leaving Heligan, we made somewhat of a mad dash through tiny roads to Ruan Lanihorne, where we had 1PM reservations at the King’s Head. We had arranged to meet Bruce & Natacha Huggett here; Bruce and I have been friends since kindergarten in Dundana School, in Dundas. We have met up a few times since we were able to reconnect a dozen or more years ago.
It just happened that they were vacationing with family in Fowey, a few miles away, so they could join us for Sunday Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding. Yumm!!!
To walk off a bit of our wonderful lunch, we visited St. Rumon church in the village. One of the interesting things about this church is that there is a wing that is at right angles to the rest of the church where the Lord of the Manor sat, with a curtain between them and the masses; their view of the Vicar was through a hole cut in the wall.
We are posing in the St. Rumon cemetery.
Our next stop was the village of Veryan, which is home to five, thatched round houses… here are the most famous two!
We visited St. Symphorian in Veryan too… there was a large plaque inside with a proclamation from King Charles I dated 1643.
After Veryan, we passed through many narrow, high hedged roads til we came to the old port village of Portloe. We drove through the tiny streets down to the small harbour then back out to the car park. On our walk down, I took this view of the headlands on the East of the harbour.
Bruce is standing outside the Lugger Inn with the harbour in the background. We had tea here on the balcony overlooking the harbour… what a memory moment!
Elaine was really happy to have made it to Portloe!
This wonderful cottage is available for vacation rentals… as are many of the buildings in Portloe.
After leaving Portloe, we drove back to the port town of Fowey, where Bruce, Natacha and some of his family were staying for the week. This is the area around the main quay, where there are a number of restaurants and pubs.
The downtown is filled with small streets and shops. And I do mean ‘down’town as there are some very steep and narrow streets to get down into the town. Fortunately we parked at the top of the hill and Bruce drove us down.
Here’s the view of the Fowey harbour from the balconey of Bruce’s family’s vacation home in Fowey.
Elaine, Bruce and Bruce’s mom enjoying the view from the balconey. She recounted a story from Dundas days’ when they got a ‘beagle’ puppy from our dog’s litter that turned into more of a sheepdog! 🙂
It’s now almost 10PM and we need to pack to move on tomorrow! Our hope is for continuing good weather to go to St. Mawes and do a river walk. Then it’s on to the Penzance area.
Cheers!