Land’s End & South West Coast Path

It is impossible to visit Cornwall for the first time and not want to go to Land’s End. That is where land ends and ocean begins, or something like that. Sounds very romantic. We were warned, however, by all the tourist guide books that Land’s End is a tacky tourist trap. Indeed, so it was. Imagine, for example, that they charge for taking your picture by the Land’s End post sign. Since we were not inclined to participate in any of that kind of stuff, we only made a couple of photographs near The First & Last House and went on to hike along the coastal path.

We hiked the South West Coast Path from Land’s End to Nanjizal beach (about a mile one way). The hike was not very hard and the weather was sunny and just a little windy. We enjoyed it a lot.

When we finally came to the Nanjizal cove I went down to the beach (there are steep metal steps installed for easy access), but unfortunately that day the beach’s floor was full of granite boulders, and I could hardly explore it. I saw many photographs of the beach on the Internet, and in most of them the beach was sandy. Unluckily, that day the ocean did not bring any sand deposits to the beach. I was little disappointed. As we hiked to Nanjizal cove and photographed it, we were wondering why it is called the Song of the Sea. On our way back, though, we may have found an explanation. About a half way back to Land’s End, when Nanjizal was barely in view, we heard a repeated faint deep sound that did not seem to have come from anywhere on the shore or on the sea (we could see that there were no ships around anywhere). What could it be, we wondered. Finally, it occurred to us that it may have been the Song of the Sea! The wind blowing through the tall narrow opening in the cove, we thought, produces a sound too deep to be heard close to the cove. Even if we were wrong, we liked the idea.

Another required activity (IMHO) while in Cornwall is to see the sunset on or near Land’s End. We went to Sennen Cove and spent some time enjoying the last rays of the sun setting over the horizon.