Isles of Scilly

I have a Travel and Leisure magazine article from February of 2020 titled "Sunny Old England."  Ever since reading that article I knew I wanted to visit the Isles of Scilly or as British people call them the Scillys (Scilly is pronounced silly).  The article talked about the Mediterranean weather and the gorgeous plants.  It went on to point out that the islands are in the path of the Gulf Stream and thus have a temperate year round weather.  Also talked about it being quaint and laid back.  The islands are 28 miles off the west coast of Cornwall England so it is a little work to get here, but oh it was so worth it!  We took a ferry for 2 1/2 hours from Penzance to get to St Mary's which is the largest island in the archipelago.  There are lots of small islands but only 5 are inhabited.  We stayed in Hugh Town which is the largest town on the islands - maybe  1,000 year round residents.  We were only able to book a 2 night stay and both of us which we could have stayed longer.

Our ferry ride from Penzance to St Mary's went along the Cornish coast for awhile so we got to see some of the scenery from the water.  We saw the Minack theater which is built into the side of a mountain, the occasional sandy beach and lots of rocky cliffs.

Our ferry which was on an incredibly smooth day

Minack theater

rare sandy beach

last site of the mainland

 St Mary's

As I said above, St Mary's is the largest town in the Scillys, but it too is small.  Our ferry arrived at the pier and began a varied organized process of getting people and stuff off the ship.  They first let people without luggage off and then all of us with luggage.  We had given them our luggage at the other end and had been told a color to look for at St Mary's so we went in search of the green spot and quickly found our luggage.  Then we walked down the length of the pier which turned out to be as long of a distance as we would walk to our hotel.  Oh and we weren't the first hotel!  We got lucky and we had been upgraded to a sea view room and it was ready for us.  We got in and ohhhed and ahhed over the view and then headed out to find lunch and explore the town.

Being an area of small islands, boats are very important for transportation more so than cars.  While there are cars on the islands, tourists can not bring one on and there are very few around.  Now boats, that there are a lot of!  Also there is the St Mary's Boatmen's Association which has a fleet of vessels that will ferry you from one island to another or for a scenic trip.  In fact we used them on our second day there to go to the island of Tresco.

view of the harbor from the hillside above town

Inside the great little pizza place we found our first night

more of the pizza place and now you have seen all of it!

Inside of our 2nd night's restaurant which was on the pier.

robot server - carrier of food while human handed to us

After lunch on our first day, we headed out to explore some.  We ended up walking around one portion/peninsula of the island that had an old garrisoned star fort which is now an upscale hotel.  The scenery around the way was quite pretty looking out over the water.  When we got to the old fort, we decided we had earned a break and ordered a drink from their dungeon bar and went and sat outside waiting for the ferry on its return to the mainland.  The weather was sunny as promised, but not as warm as Jeff and I had hoped.  I wore my insulated jacket a lot because the wind was cold.  We have laughed the whole time we have been in England because there is no consensus as to the appropriate attire for the weather.  You will see someone wearing a jacket like mine next to someone in a sleeveless shirt and both appear to be comfortable.  Don't get me wrong I wasn't cold here, I just needed something to break the wind so it was off, on, zipped, unzipped a lot.

part of the old fort

The sailboat in the photo below was directly outside our window matter of fact that is where we took the picture.  The height differences in the tides continues to amaze us.  The sailboat was basically drydocked and being worked on yet the tides at times did have it floating some.  

We would really appreciate our view on our second night there because that was the first night of the Queen's Platinum Jubilee Celebrations which kicked off with ceremonial lighting of over 3,000 beacons two of which were on St Mary's and one which we could see from our window.  The beacon we could see was lit by the lifeboat building and ramp.  Oh I should point out that we are rather far north so the days are longer here - these beacons were first lit at 9:35pm.  Notice in first picture how light out it still was on June 2

lifeboat beacon late at night

the other beacon which was by the government building

lifeboat beacon earlier in the evening say 10ish

Tresco Island

From the article I had read, I knew that the Abbey Gardens were supposed to be impressive.  After the gardens at St Michael's Mount, I was a little worried we would be disappointed.  The gardens did not disappoint.  In fact, if you are a garden lover then you need to come here.  Seriously, come  here.  We were amazed at some of the plants that are growing here.  The story of the gardens is this.  There was a priory (St. Nicholas Priory) here with monks, but they had a problem with pirates to the point that the monks finally abandoned the site.  Later an Augustus Smith was given control of the islands and chose Tresco as his home.  He built the abbey around/adjacent the old priory.  He also started a garden but not just any garden.  He got plants from the mariners who were travelling in the area who brought them from all around the world.  

The boat ride from St Mary's is short and drops you off at a pier with nothing there but a couple of signs one of which said Abbey 15 minutes this way.  Most of us on the boat headed that way.  It was an interesting walk.  As part of the route literally took us across the islands airport landing strip.  Seriously doubt I will ever walk across an active runway again.

entrance to a private estate adjacent to Abbey Gardens with some unique plants on the righthand side

Crossing the airport

flowers on a fence in the small town - told Jeff if that was at florist I would have thought the flowers had been dyed

local wildlife

checking out the beach in a resort area of the island

The following pictures are from the gardens.  There were so many flowers in bloom including a ton of geraniums that when I saw a couple of gardeners working I asked them if the gardens were always this full of blooms.  They said no that the spring and early summer are the best times although there is always something to see.  There are tons of flower gardens, a couple of water features, palm trees, evergreen trees, palm trees and ferns, and some hedges which were planted to help keep the saltwater off the plantings.  Trees that Jeff called the upside down umbrella because of the way their leaves grew.  Lichens and other things covering chairs and stone walls.  Oh we saw a red squirrel right after we entered the garden - they are smaller than a grey and their ears have little tufts of fur on them.  I really can't say everything we saw - some azaleas (end of season).  I can only say it was gorgeous and if you go to England then you need to come here!

The tree Jeff liked is in the middle of this photo

sitting on a lichen covered bench

notice the red squirrel on the left

Also at the Abbey Gardens is the  Valhalla Museum which is figureheads from ships that wrecked in the area.  For most of the figureheads, they can tell you what ship it was from and the date.  There are a couple that are unknown.  Some of them are quite pretty.  I was surprised to learn that many of the female figureheads were made in honor of female members of the boat's owner's family.

Once we had enjoyed the Abbey Gardens as much as we could, we headed out to explore the rest of the island some.  On our boat ride over we had chatted with another couple who also rent out their home (thus why they were on vacation) and we ran into them.  They were in search of the beach that was supposed to be a good swimming spot because the wife was determined to go for a swim - I think there was going to be some bragging involved later.  They also pointed out where a nearby inn and restaurant was since we were in search of lunch.  We ate lunch at the Old Inn surrounded by multi-generation, British families on holiday.  Tresco Island has a bunch of nice houses that are for rent (let in the local lingo).  The only vehicles I saw were a couple of mini buses (electric) that ferried people around a little bit.  Most people were walking or on bikes.  It would be a great place for a family get together since you could rent the bikes and let the kids have some freedom.  We saw families playing on the beach some and enjoying water sports even a little swimming.  Oh they do tend to wear wet suits a lot to stay warm, but of course you have the young boys out there with just swim trunks too bragging how cold they are.  We walked around a little and then it was time to find our return boat.  They said one would go where we got off and then another at a different pier which we were clueless about so off we went.  Big surprise when we got to the pier.  There was more than one boat there because there was a small cruise ship anchored off shore.  Turns out it was a Silver Seas Cruise ship which is why I ran into another American at the garden and she stared at me when I seemed amazed to run into an American.  See until then I had not seen or heard any Americans for a couple of days.  We got on the correct ship and worried that our new friends were not there.  Happily next morning at breakfast they were there.  We all laughed they had worried about us.  Seems there had been another ship that left a little early and they had been on that one.  Later that morning, we were back on the ferry heading to Penzance and then to the train station to go onto Plymouth.  On the ferry, Jeff saw the couple who told him a couple of places we should visit while in Plymouth.  That has been pretty typical for us on this trip; people want to be sure we hit the best places.

notice the art - the sphere in the middle of the photo