Holidaying in Cornwall
You don’t need us to tell you about Cornwall. At some stage in your life you will have heard about the lanes, the beaches, the cliffs, the food and the people.
It’s one of the great British holiday destinations and it crops up quite often in the travel pages of the newspapers and magazines. But not often in the main part of the paper.
Yet that is what happened yesterday in The Times.
Page 4 was a full page article about how Cornwall is the new Tuscany. Apparently, Cornwall is now the trendy place to go, the place to be seen whether you’re are a film or TV star, a politician or a novelist. Even the Archbishop of Canterbury comes. In all 4.5 million people holiday here. The author of the article, Valentine Low, chronicles who goes where and that seems to be important. Where you go defines you; surfers in the north, yachting types in the south and hippies in the west.
Fitting into none of these types, I wonder what effect this publicity will have on other visitors. Would you go to place where you might run into David Cameron or Kate Moss? (the model not the author) Is it turning into a very expensive playground just for the well-to-do? Will the rest of us be priced out by expensive hotels and pricey Michelin starred restaurants? After all Rick Stein dominates Padstow. Jamie Oliver and Nathan Outlaw have places here and rumours abound of new restaurants opening, hotels being upgraded and holiday lets becoming expensive.
Cornwall used to be place to get away from it all. It took a long time to drive there but the quality of the light attracted the artists; walkers were drawn to the coastal tramp and Newquay attracted those that were fanatical surfers. And my uncle was attracted by fishing off the rocks. Will we able to afford it in the future now the trendies have found it? Or maybe The Times just had a slow news day and us normal holidaymakers needn’t worry.
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We’ve (Wife and I) being going down to Cornwall for the last 30 years, and have found that it’s getting to the point were ‘London’ prices are the norm. So we now have a few days in instead of the fortnight that we used to take.
Shame, because Kernow is fantastic – but it seems to be pricing itself out of the reach of many people, and I hope it doesn’t get to the point when only the few elitists can visit.
Best wishes