Oh, St. Ives.

What can I even say about you?

Imagine the most quintessential little seaside village you can think of.  The picture of the peaceful English coast.  Blue ocean and bluer sky.

You’d be imagining St. Ives, I guarantee it.

We spent our last morning in Cornwall visiting this lovely little harbour village on the north shore.  On the excellent advice of John, our host at The Old Vicarage, we took the train from St. Erth instead of driving.  Fifteen minutes, £8 for all five of us together, and a picturesque ride on a railroad that ran right along the coast.

We arrived in no time and set off to explore the narrow cobbled streets, which made my mom & I supremely glad that we weren’t driving.  Yes, there were cars driving down this:

St. Ives is the kind of place you just want to go on looking at, so I’ll let the photographs do most of the talking.

My dad said he thought Cornwall must be the happiest place on earth to be a dog.  I think he’s probably right – although Scotland might be a close second.

We followed the beach as it curved around the harbour, and paused to look out over the sea.

We continued on and wandered about, picking out our favorite apartments and the cottages my parents would buy if they retired to St. Ives.

My mom settled on Pelican Cottage for her & Dad, while I liked the look of the one right across the street.  It was the fish knocker that sold me on it.

We climbed up some stone steps for another great harbour view.

The sea was a sparkling turquoise that seemed much more reminiscent of a Caribbean island than of England in January!

When the wind started getting too chilly, we ducked back in to town to continue our stroll.

Mum & I even found our own Cornish version of the Idle, just like in Geneseo!

We had tea & coffee at a little café with big windows, where you could see slivers of the ocean through the rooftops of buildings below.  From there, there was just time to pop out for one last look at the beach before boarding our return train to St. Erth.

Views like that make me want to throw all my grad school notebooks in the air and move out to the beach, where I will sit in a rocking chair and knit big squishy afghans and paint my watercolors on the porch.  I need some saltwater back in my veins.

I’d say St. Ives was a perfect note to end our trip to Cornwall on.  (Sidenote: I tried for ten minutes to figure out a way to not end that sentence with a preposition.  I can’t do it.)

EDIT: Wait, I figured it out!

I’d say St. Ives was a perfect note on which to end our trip to Cornwall.

Phew.