Good home base in Cornwall
 

My sister and I are looking for a small town/village in Cornwall to be our base for 5-7 days of hiking. We do not want to rent a car, so need somewhere accessible from London by public transportation that also has good local transportation (bus or taxi in a pinch) to/from day hikes, some restaurants/ pubs, accommodation, local businesses. We would like to be able to do a few hikes from the door (so don't want a town so big you need a bus to start every hike.) We would prefer to be on the coast. Does such a place exist?

(Previously have stayed in the town of Seaford on the south coast which is exactly the kind of place we are looking for.)

Thank you for any ideas.

Falmouth. Easy train ride from Paddington with a change at Truro. Foot ferries abound (see the Fal river links website), plus water taxis and buses. Plenty of shops, pubs and restaurants in the town itself, plus a maritime museum and castle (and another castle in easy reach from the St Mawes ferry) for wet days.

yes, I agree with a nicecupoftea that Falmouth would be a great base, and there are a number of hikes that you can do simply by walking out of the door, or by getting a boat and walking from there. Also some great restaurants, a theatre/cinema, galleries, two museums [the municipal one and the National Maritime museum] Pendents Castle and Little Dennis, gardens, etc. etc.

You might also like to look a Fowey [though you'd need a bus to get there] and Penzance, which is lovely but you would need to get a bus before you started walking, in most cases.

hope that helps!

Yes thanks, this gives me a great start. I had thought about both Falmouth and Penzance. Glad to see I'm on the right track!

Falmouth to me was much more whatever than Penzance, which did not have a city feeling but seemed spread out without as I recall a seafront right in town - Falmouth was to me a dreamy old port - a place that seemed so so nice (as Penzance did to in its own way).

Penzance has a seafront. We walked along the promenade to Newlyn, about a mile, some of it in the rain with winds that turned our umbrellas inside out. Very refreshing!

carolyn - there is a famous painting of the prom at Penzance where the people are doing just that - it's on the Penlee Gallery and Museum website:

http://www.penleehouse.org.uk/newlyn-school.html

it's obviously a common occurrence round those parts!

We went to the Gallery, Ann, but I don't remember seeing that painting. It's great!

Carolyn - that's a shame. Depending on what the main exhibition is, they have more [or less] room for displaying the permanent collection, which is why I like to pop in when I can to see what's on the walls at any particular time.