The poor cousin

Today was fine and sunny, thank goodness! Just in time for our visit to St. Michael's Mount, with a visit on the return trip to Trelissick Gardens.

I will reorganise my Cornwall set on Flickr so that some good ones from today are up the top. For now, you'll have to scroll down:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157646225135997/

I had a bonus start to the day today. The usual combination of muesli, yoghurt and a bit of bread was complemented by some blackberries - dad found a big plant near Mevagissey yesterday and picked a whole kilo's worth. Some extra goodness for the long day ahead of us.

The drive down to St. Michael's Mount was fairly uneventful, taking about an hour. St. Michael's Mount is almost literally the poorer cousin when compared to Le Mont Saint Michel, on the northern French coast (been there, done that!). It's not nearly as popular though, so when we parked at a charity car park and walked to the ferry pick-up point, it wasn't too long to wait. We were a bit unlucky with the tide times, as the tide was up for the whole day. When the tide is out, you can walk across a causeway to the mount. Not today though:

The mount from afar

There were far, FAR less people there than at the French version, but still quite a few. It was fairly tolerable, as there were almost no shops or other things down the bottom, and the crowd thinned out considerably near the top of the mount:

The harbour part of the mount

We got in free as National Trust members, so we were also able to visit the castle at the top. It contains quite a few rooms, including a separate church which has been visited by Charles and Camilla, and even Elizabeth II! We reckon they got them up via the secret underground tramway that was added in 1901 and has been used ever since to transport the locals' groceries up to the castle:

Castle interior

From the top of the castle, you have sweeping views of the area, from Penzance and Mousehole in the west all the way around to Lizard Point in the east. The sky and water were both a beautiful shade of blue all day:

The view from the top of the mount

After a wander around the whole place, we headed back on the ferry to the mainland, and wandered through the town right across the harbour, Marazion. It's a gimmicky tourist town, which gets most of its business from the mount:

Marazion town

We then headed back to Trelissick Gardens, just south of Truro. I had to use Google Maps as our SatNav chucked a hissy fit and firmly believed we were heading over hill and over dale. The gardens are not really spectacular (I would have preferred to visit Kynance Cove, which is a spectacular rock formation on the sea), but instead rather spread out and relaxing. It was another National Trust property though, so I supposed we are getting our money's worth out of that. There's also a conservatory, a water tower and an orchard:

Trelissick Gardens

That pretty much sums up the day. Tomorrow is our last day in Cornwall - it's going to be a rest day, though we will go into St. Austell town proper and run some errands. I need a haircut, it's been nearly 3 months!