This is going to be less of a helpful travel guide for Falmouth, and more of a blog post on ~vibes and ~feelings and ~taking time out of my usual day-to-day life to visit the end of the country(ish). And apologies in advance for all these photos being portrait – I was in the headspace of taking photos for Instagram, rather than my blog…

The day after my birthday, Mike and I donned our short shorts, packed up the car with all the things we’d need for our trip to Falmouth, and commenced our sweaty 3.5 hour drive from Bristol to Falmouth – well, Penryn to be more accurate, as that’s where we stayed.

I only took one photo of our AirBnb, but it was a super duper cute and incredibly tiny little cottage in Penryn, but it was really pretty and the perfect little base for us for a couple of nights.

We got there just after 3pm, dropped our belongings, and almost immediately headed back out to enjoy the rest of the sunny day. I was gagging for a swim, so we headed for Gyllyngvase Beach, deciding to walk there – it’d take an hour but the weather was beautiful and we’d been cooped up in the car for ages.

The first part of the walk wasn’t great – a lot of traffic and quite a lot of industrial/marina areas – but before long we were on a much quieter street that followed the river, all the way to Falmouth high street, which, as you can see, is very pretty.

We didn’t stop in any of the many, many cute shops or cafés (apart from to buy Mike an emergency sausage roll) instead heading directly for Gylly beach, which was only about 20 mins or so from the high street.

We were greeted with a gorgeous white sandy beach filled with people enjoying the last few hours of warm sunshine. I got in the sea straight away and had a lovely little swim, and felt so much more relaxed afterwards.

After drying off a little, we headed back to the high street to get a holiday beer. We chose The Touc Inn at The Cornish Bank, which had a lovely selection of local beers, and a really nice beer garden with a sliver of sunshine left.

A big part of why we were in Cornwall that particular weekend was because Mumble Tide – one of the many bands Mike is now in – were playing a gig down there, and so another member of the band and his partner (hi Ben and Gill!) joined us for a few drinks.

They left for dinner, and we were ravenous too, and suddenly the short shorts were a terrible idea. We bought some fish ‘n’ chips from the much-recommended Harbour Lights, and managed to get a taxi back to our AirBnb, where we scoffed the lot and watched some weird/great TV.

The next day Mike had a big lie-in but I couldn’t sleep, so I spent a little bit of time sitting in the window seat of our AirBnb, drinking tea and watching the world go by. I hope I get my own deep window seat one day.

Once we were up and dressed, we headed out to find breakfast. We headed to a place that Mike had been before – Muddy Beach Café – where he had this amazing-looking breakfast stack, and I had a fancy BLT.

Then it was back up the road to Stargazy Cucina & Pantry to meet my pal Ellen, who moved down to Falmouth from Bristol early this year. She had Elly in tow (you might remember her from my blog post, 20 Bristol bloggers, influencers and content creators that I love to follow) and we only had a tiny window before they had to get a train to Penzance.

Most of that window was filled with chats from the eccentric owner of Stargazy, who has the most amazing head of hair and runs the café all by herself. The food looked absolutely incredible there, and I sort of wished we weren’t already full of breakfast… maybe next time.

We said our goodbyes, and Mike popped back to our cottage for a bit of quiet time, while I popped a couple of doors down to poke around a vintage shop I’d had my eye on – Three of Cups.

It was really beautifully curated, with lovely displays and rails full of really pretty things. I tried on a few items, but sadly none of them were quite right. Again, maybe next time.

I wandered back to the cottage, peering down alleyways and admiring all the truly adorable shops, buildings and streets of Penryn.

It was time to walk the gruelling 3 minutes to our friends Robin and Hannah’s house, where we were greeted with lovely hugs and a smiley baby. Hannah is a fantastic cook, and had whipped up some gorgeous scones so that we could have a cream tea, together with Ben and Gill. Do not make any comments on how I did the cream and jam the “wrong” way – I am from Devon, and this is correct.

A quick pit-stop to put some jeans on (I wasn’t making that bare legs mistake a second time) and it was back into Falmouth, so that the boys could go to sound check, and Gill and I could get some drinks in the sunshine, which was absolutely lovely. Although that visit to The Black Cat was very short-lived, as it was full of what looked like a party or hen do.

The band joined us for a pint in The Touc Inn, and before we knew it, it was time to watch Mumble Tide at Church KCM, which was a beautiful venue to see them in. I may be a tiny bit biased because Mike is playing drums for them and they’re all so lovely, but Mumble Tide really are such a good band, I really love their music.

We got a pizza afterwards and ate it on the steps of the church, before heading down the road for a drink at Beerwolf Books – part bookshop, part pub, with lots of good beers on tap.

It was time for us to call it a night after that – the next day’s drive looming – but the others stayed out for another drink.

Sunday rolled around and our AirBnb host kindly gave us an extra hour, so there was no rushing. We got our bits together and popped them in the car, before heading down to Situ Café for a lovely coffee and pastry to fuel us for the first part of the drive.

We headed to my cousin Ruth’s house – despite being close growing up, we hadn’t seen each other in years. We had a lovely lunch in the garden with her wife Liz and the chickens, before heading to Golitha Falls to get an ice cream and have a little walk.

There was a very busy food place there called Inkie’s Smokehouse which had a huge queue for their delicious-smelling BBQ food – this unfortunately was also the ice cream queue. But it was worth the wait, and we walked in the shade under the trees and watched the water rush by, which was so calming.

And back in the car we got – next stop Devon (and I’ll write a blog about that as soon as I have the beans for it).

If you liked this blog post, check out my other travel posts, have a gander at my Instagram post about Falmouth, and maybe pop @lyziunwin a follow while you’re there, eh 😉