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St Ives - The Town and Surroundings
We spent 5 years trying to decide where to buy our holiday home and finally decided on St Ives as our favourite English seaside town that we never seemed to get bored visiting. (Last year we visited 14 times ! - although that was partly due to buying and refurbishing Cape Cottage).
If you don't know St Ives let me explain why we like it;
- It is beautifully located - surrounded on 3 sides by aquamarine seas and white sandy beaches
- The clarity of light has attracted artists for over 100 years and the town still has a large artist colony and many studios
- The town is pretty with cobbled streets and many old granite buildings
- It has a fantastic selection of pubs, restaurants, bistros, boutiques and shops
- It has avoided the down market image of many coastal towns and does not suffer from endless tacky shops, takeaways, amusement arcades and loutish behaviour
- It is an all year round destination and does not turn into a ghost town in the winter
- the weather is often the best in the UK - attracting more than its fair share of sun and warmer temperatures
- It is perfect for families - all the beaches are within walking distance and surround the town centre
- It is also great for adult breaks with excellent restaurants, a selection of pubs, interesting shopping and a great base for walking or exploring the Far West of Cornwall
- The Far West of Cornwall is fascinating - a landscape that has not changed in thousands of years with iron age settlements, sacred wells, rugged moorland, granite enclosed fields, miles of coast, coves and hidden beaches together with small granite villages and the ruins of tin mines, not forgetting a unique natural history supporting many rare species unique to this peninsular
- More information can be found on the various St Ives websites - see links page
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St Ives - The Beaches
- There are 3 main beaches and 3 smaller ones
- With so much beach they are never overcrowded even at the height of summer
- All surround the town and Cape Cottage being central is about 250m from each
- Porthminster is the most sheltered larger beach with an Edwardian feel to it being backed by the Porthminster hotel. It is perfect for smaller children wishing to avoid the surf
- The Town beach surrounds the harbour and is our favourite for shorter visits and winter trips being most sheltered closest to the cafes, ice cream shops and pubs on the front
- Porthmeor is the surfing beach - facing west it gets the bigger swells and you can hire boards and suits throughout the spring and summer. It also benefits from fantastic sunsets in the summer and many people stay on the beach late in the evening to barbecue and watch the sunset
- Porthgwidden is a small cove on the 'island' it has a lovely cafe that doubles up as an evening bistro. The town is hidden by the cliffs and the beach looks out into the bay towards the distant lighthouse - it feels very Mediterranean on summer evenings
- For dog walkers the beach behind the lifeboat house allows dogs all year (the others ban dogs between Easter and October)
- Additionally there are many rock pools around the island, a waterfall on Porthmeor beach and crabbing potential next to the old pier at low tide.
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