Penzance; Wednesday, 06 April, 2005

After a very comfortable nights sleep, and a delicious breakfast I headed out to the bus station and on to Geevor. Tin has been mined here for hundreds of years and Geevor was one of the last to close as foreign competition and falling prices made Cornish mining no longer a commercial prospect. The last mining was done on the site in 1986. The pumps were left running and the site kept maintained up until 1990 when it was finally abandoned to fall into disrepair.

Today the site has reopened as a museum to mining in Cornwall. You can wander over large sections of the site seeing how miners spent their days. The mines that closed in 1990 stretched more than 1.5KM out to see, and when the pumps were turned off started to fill with water. However, some 18th century mines have been rediscovered and one of the highlights of the museum is a short tour around a small part.

In the end I spent almost three hours wandering around the site, and I didn't see everything, but by then my feet were hurting. I caught the bus back to Penzance and then another three miles along the coast to Mazarion. From here you can normally reach the castle and monastery on St Michael's Mount, a small island just off shore connected by a causeway at low tide and a boat at other times. Unfortunately, due to the high winds the National Trust, who run the site, had closed it!

Instead I caught the bus back towards Penzance and changed onto another heading to St Ives.

The town is very pretty with stunning views around the bays from the top of the very steep town. After spending some time taking in the sights of the town I walked down to Tate St Ives.

The building it is in is architecturally stunning with lots of space created and large gallery areas. Unfortunately, they have filled it with... Art not to my personal taste, and very little of it to justify the £5.50 entrance fee! To make matters worse the staff were quite rude (the only non-pleasant people I met during the whole trip)

I left the gallery after about 25 minutes feeling slightly cheated (it should be noted that both of the Tates in London are free to look around the general collections)

I had a further wander around town before heading off to the station to catch the train back to Penzance. The line between St Ives and St Erth (where it meets the mainline to Penzance) is possibly one of the most picturesque and beautiful in the country. The line snakes around the side of the cliffs as it makes its way along the coast.

I got back into Penzance and quickly popped back to the hotel to drop my bag off, and, by fluke, miss the torrential downpour! After the rain had stopped it was time for dinner.