Back to Britain, Part 10
Cornwall’s
St. Ives and Trewinnard Hotel
June
10-25, 2003 (Updated Dec. 5, 2003)
By
Lewis Nolan
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Thursday, June 19, 2003 – To St. Ives
Breakfast was a delicious,
takeout BLT on a baguette from the Waitrose Supermarket. The inviting store is
in the heart of Bath and only a few steps from the Hilton. The interior had the
look and feel of an American food chain store. However, there was no sprawling
parking lot here. The urban store is served by a multi-story parking garage,
which also serves the hotel and other businesses. Many local customers walk to
market. I would have liked to poke around the Waitrose to compare foods and
prices. But the road to Cornwall beckoned.
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| Betty on flower-bedecked walkway in St. Ives |
| Click Colored Type to Enlarge Photo |
We drove through the
rolling Cotswalds of southern England in light rain. It turned out to be a
long, tiring and frustrating drive due to some truly awful directions we got
from a well-meaning concierge at the Hilton. Adding to our confusion were
unfamiliar signs on England’s country roads.
This was the only part of
our drive across the country where we encountered problems. The busy M-routes that crisscross England
are “dual carriageway” roads like the divided highways of U.S. Interstates. The
speed limit is usually 70 mph. The A-routes are almost as good but not always
divided. On the A-routes, highway junctions are often traversed through
“roundabouts” rather than by the horrendously costly overpasses and clover
leafs used on the Motorways.
We spotted only one or two
police vehicles during the several hundreds of miles of our road trip. England
mainly relies on hidden cameras to enforce its traffic laws. Motorists are warned that cameras take
pictures of speeding vehicles; miscreants are traced by license numbers and
heavily fined. It looks like few motorists pay much attention to the risk, at
least on the motorways.
Had we followed our
instincts and gone a few miles out of the way from Bath to return to the M-5
and the A highways rather than take the concierge’s “shortcut,” our drive would
have taken less time. As it was, we ended up having to frequently brake for
slow-moving tractors on the twisty, narrow, back roads. We also lost time when
we had to backtrack through several tiny villages because of confusing signage.
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| Glynis O'Shea, Ken Maidmint |
| Click Colored Type to Enlarge Photo |
We arrived in the coastal
town of St. Ives in southwest Cornwall just after 3 p.m. Our attitudes improved
immensely when we stopped on a narrow, hillside street to ask for directions
from a man working on a roof. The middle-aged owner of the B&B climbed down
a ladder from the roof and affably gave us easy-to-follow directions to the
Trewinnard Private Hotel at 4 Park Avenue a mile or two away. He offered to get
in his car and lead the way, an unexpected kindness that we declined. Once
there, we were surprised to see that he driven to the hotel to make sure we got
there okay.
The Trewinnard’s owners
gave us a hearty welcome that melted any residual crankiness that remained from the unnecessarily
difficult drive. They are Glynis O’Shea and Ken Maidmint, two middle-aged
fireballs of energy to whom we took an immediate liking. I had exchanged some
e-mails with Glynis during the booking process several months previously and
even then sensed an intelligence and outgoing graciousness that was sure to
please.
They gave us the run of
the place, including an “honor bar” where I enjoyed a daily glass of Stella
Artois, a very good Belgian lager that dates to the 16th Century. As
we got to know them, we learned that Glynis and Ken both had failed marriages
in their backgrounds. They had met in London, where he was a baker and she
worked in a business office. They fell in love and decided to give themselves a
second chance at life by going into business together in beautiful St. Ives.
They jointly bought the seven-room B&B and were having the time of their
lives managing it.
They seem to be ideally
suited to their inn-keeping partnership. Glynis is the waitress/reservations
clerk/marketing manager and business administrator. Ken is the
bellman/plumber/maintenance man/bartender and breakfast cook. The hard rolls
and croissants that come out of Ken’s oven are served piping hot. They are
heavenly.
We’ve seen a lot of
seaside towns and villages in Europe, North America, Mexico and the Caribbean
over the years. But none have the beauty and charm of St. Ives. We had
originally planned to stay in nearby Penzance, another tourist center in
Cornwall. But I had trouble locating a suitable property - one having large
rooms – and getting responses to my emails to several hotels and B&Bs.
A well-seasoned,
world-traveling pal back home had suggested that we try St. Ives, where she and
her husband had been attracted by the town’s focus on art and landscaped
beauty. I’m very glad she opened my eyes to St. Ives, which beats Penzance in
every category of importance to us.
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| Lewis and Betty by St. Ives harbor at low tide |
| Click Colored Type to Enlarge Photo |
The seasonal tourism
market in the southwest of Cornwall evidently isn’t strong enough to interest
the big hotel chains to build modern hotels to American standards. The seashore
is beautiful but the water is cold. The vacation packages offered by American
airlines list no lodging options for Cornwall. St. Ives is hard to get to from
the U.S., so most big-spending, American tourists go elsewhere. One of the
Internet travel service companies routes American tourists through Paris, then
Bristol to the north of St. Ives.
It is possible to fly from
America to London and take a train from Paddington Station to St. Ives. The St.
Ives station is within walking distance of the Twewinnard. It may be easier to
fly to Dublin, then to Bristol or other small airport in Southwest England.
Either itinerary likely requires a hotel stay in London or Dublin if one is to
avoid an impossibly long time in flight and layover.
It appears that most
tourists visiting St. Ives are the thrifty English, and they do visit in droves
during the warm months. Most of the lodgings are in family-owned B&Bs or
small hotels.
I had found the Trewinnard
Private Hotel through the Internet. Its website is (www.Trewinnard-Hotel-StIves.co.uk)
What appealed to me most are the facts that the hotel has a terrific location
on a hillside, a four-star rating and is totally non-smoking. It offers a
large, family-sized room that met our requirements. The price wasn’t cheap (£70
per night for the two of us, including an excellent breakfast), but it provided
excellent value.
Our comfortable room is
No. 2. It is equipped with a double bed plus two bunk beds. It has a modern,
spic-and-span bathroom with shower. Furnishings include a color TV but no
American stations. We had a great view of the town. From the bay window we can
see the gray and red tile roofs of St. Ives marching up and down the concave
hillsides that surround the harbor. But we couldn’t see the water from our
room. A smaller room down the hall has a bay window with an excellent view of
the oh-so-beautiful harbor. There are additional rooms on the third story.
We were upstairs from the
dining room, the tiny bar and the unpretentious “guest lounge.” The lounge is
really a living room that could come out of a middleclass family’s home –
complete with antique photographs and loads of books about Cornwall and St.
Ives. We found the room to be a wonderful place to read and relax on
overstuffed couches and chairs. It is totally unlike the uninviting,
decorator-chic sitting areas found in the lobbies of many chain hotels. Like
one of the guest rooms upstairs, this room’s bay window offers a fantastic view
of the town, the harbor, fishing boats, “the island” and the Atlantic Ocean.
 |
| Betty overlooks rugged Cornish coast at St. Ives |
| Click Colored Type to Enlarge Photo |
I thought it odd that
Betty and I were the only hotel guests who took advantage of the room’s charm
and comfort. Maybe it is because the TV in the room offers only BBC and another
channel or two. That makes it all the better for people like us who would
rather read than watch dull programming.
Our hosts recommended
several restaurants within a short walk of the Trewinnard. We opted for the Sea
Food Café for our first meal in St. Ives. It is a casual, moderately priced,
“pick-your-own” restaurant. We walked down the hillside steps and a few hundred
yards on one of St. Ive’s narrow streets near the harbor. The restaurant’s fish
and other seafood selections are displayed on ice. Customers pick out what they
want. The fish is cooked to order and brought to the table by a friendly staff
of attractive waitresses. I had some excellent lemon sole and Betty had a
dinner-sized portion of steamed mussels. The appetizer size would have been
plenty. Each mussel (not the shell) was half the size of my little finger –
roughly double the size of those we’ve had in France and back home. They tasted
great.
We found the Sea Food Café
to have wonderfully fresh food that is well served in a crisp and spare modern
setting. The prices were reasonable and the service good. But the restaurant
was a little too busy and noisy to suit our tastes. The place was fully booked
during prime time dining hours, so we ate early. Evenings are long this far
north at this time of year. It doesn’t get dark until 9:30 p.m. in Great
Britain during the summer, so we had several hours to poke around town. Many
stores stay open late.
Most streets in the old
section of town are made of cobblestones. The streets were built as the town
grew up the hillsides from the harbor. The narrow, twisty lanes are barely the
width of a car. The streets near the harbor are closed to vehicles during the
peak tourism months of July and August.
 |
| Betty overlooks Porthmeor Beach at St. Ives |
| Click Colored Type to Enlarge Photo |
St. Ives is studded with
gem-like, tiny gardens planted with multicolored flowers. Their number and
their beauty have earned the town a series of awards. Local government
encourages property owners to hang flowerpots from their buildings’ exterior
walls. The government makes available
potting and watering services for a small fee. We saw a municipal crew making
the rounds with a water wagon equipped with long nozzles to reach the hanging
baskets.
Local government also
plants flowers in the roundabouts and at intersections of busy streets. The
planting is efficiently done in bags of topsoil that are arranged in orderly
rows and circles. The foliage and flowers cover up the plastic bags.
The quay lining the harbor
forms a busy promenade. There are wooden benches here and there. There is a
10-foot tide that alternately floats and beaches several dozen fishing boats
and other craft twice daily. Everybody who visits St. Ives seems to spend a lot
of time admiring the harbor.
Various takeout food shops
face the quay, providing a source of nourishment to both visitors and annoying
seagulls. We had been warned to beware of seagulls swooping down to steal food
right out of your hand. Signs direct people to not feed the birds, but some do
anyway. Townsfolk are not amused. They
see the gulls as noisy pests. Their droppings stain many roofs. The gulls’
squawking calls as they fly about can be heard through open windows all night
long.
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