Eden Project

Deciding to go to the Eden project, a giant greenhouse, on one of the hottest days of the year, was probably one of the daftest decisions I have ever made. Breath-takingly beautiful at every turn with incredible architecture, our trip was dominated by the overwhelming heat.

Eden Project

Eden Project

There are two biomes, connected by a vast café and dining room, serving freshly made utterly delicious food. One biome is tropical, showcasing plants and housing structures from various tropical regions across the world. The other, smaller biome is Mediterranean themed with plants from the region interspersed with small tastes of Mediterranean style architecture and a café serving regional food.

Eden Project

Eden Project

The biomes are impressive and the variety of plants across the entire site is amazing – we really enjoyed our walk in the grounds admiring the wildflower meadows. However, given the lack of interpretation around the site both regarding its history and about the plants, it doesn’t feel like great value for money given the incredibly steep entry fee. In their defence they did try really hard to sell us a book that would have told us all we could have wished to know, but having just stumped up £23 per person there was no chance we were shelling out another £6!

eden project on wide angle wanderings

Eden Project

Eden Project

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Camping in Cornwall

camping in cornwall header

Not ready to surrender the calm and relaxed pace that we had adopted over the weekend of Port Eliot Festival, we opted to head south and west towards the sea, rather than heading home at the end of the weekend.

We found a campsite owned by the National Trust at Lansallos, situated just of the South West Coastal path about halfway between Fowey and Polperro. It was completely idyllic, surrounded on all sides by fields with the sea on the horizon. We spent three more magical days relaxing in the sunshine.

We walked along the path to Polruan one day, and took the ferry over to Fowey for delicious seafood salads and ice cream (complete with Cornish fudge). We headed the other way the next day to reach Polperro, for fish and chips and more of that delicious ice cream!

The path between the villages is a stunning walk, with each turn providing another breath taking vista out to sea, across beautiful sandy beaches and in to little coves in which the villages are nestled.

Fowey, Polperro and Polruan are all small, touristy villages perched on the edge of the sea, but it was undoubtedly Polperro that stole my heart. Completely car free, it has tiny winding cobbled streets around the harbour. The cottages and shops situated on either side of these streets have tiny little doors and windows, making them almost certainly frustratingly dark inside, but oh so quaint for the observer.

Camping in Cornwall pictures on Wide angle wanderings

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Port Eliot Festival

So it’s been a while. I hadn’t actually forgotten about this little space, I’ve just been busy and so only have several aborted attempts at posts to show for the last few months. It’s been pretty exciting though so I have lots of interesting things coming up. First up, Port Eliot Festival.

Port Eliot Festival title over bunting on wide angle wanderings

Taking place in the beautiful grounds of Port Eliot House in St Germans in Cornwall, Port Eliot is a whimiscal festival set in a magical place and absolutely my favourite festival ever. This was our second time and definitely won’t be our last.

Within minutes of arriving on site the real world felt wonderfully far away and a sense of complete calm washed over me.

Port Eliot on Wide angle wanderings

Over the course of three days we listened to some hilarious, inspiring and fascinating speakers – authors, playwrights, poets, musicians, and many others who defy any conventional label. We joined a knitting circle, danced under the stars, read in the sunshine, watched a fabulous sunset and listened to the mud popping in the estuary at twilight.

I love the lack of exclusivity the festival has, everyone is there to experience everything there is to offer, so often you find yourself sitting in the audience beside or behind someone who you were listening to the hour or day before. Yet it never feels remotely crowded and it’s easy to find quiet little spaces to sit and chat or read in when you need a little respite. It’s a place where ideas come to flourish and you can’t help but leave feeling inspired.

And with a giant list of books to read!

These are just a sample of some of the pictures I took, as always there are more here.

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Culture

It’s no secret that whilst we were living in Vancouver I really missed what we in the UK refer to as culture. Since moving to London we have thoroughly immersed ourselves and it has been fantastic. We saw Stones in his Pockets at the Tricycle Theatre, I saw Billy Elliot the musical with Frances and we’ve seen comedy at the Union Chapel in Highbury and Islington (it’s actually a Chapel most of the time) and in the Royal Albert Hall where we finally got to see Tim Minchin live. Not to mention the circus at the Roundhouse and Lisa and I had an unexpectedly fascinating evening at the Tabernacle in Notting Hill where we heard a number of speakers including Alain de Botton and Jonathan Safran Foer.

We’ve also been to lots and lots of museums and galleries, the Hockney exhibition at the Royal Academy was particularly fantastic, although really really busy. I also particularly enjoyed Hajj: Journey to the heart of Islam at the British Museum and beautiful old books at the Bodleian Library in Oxford.

I went on a bit of a ticket buying spree when I got my first paycheck, could have bought clothes, should have bought furniture but nope I just bought lots and lots of tickets. It’s very exciting though we have at least one thing lined up every month until September!

culture on wide angle wanderingsculture on wide angle wanderingsand because I love it so very much I couldn’t resist posting this:

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London Landmarks

One really chilly day in January when we really needed to get out of our tiny flat before we fell over yet another box we ventured to the Design Museum. The current exhibition was about Conran. It was a really interesting exhibition and it’s always fun to see things you recognise from your parents kitchen in a museum! It was also great for getting interior design inspiration, albeit perhaps rather out of our price and size range.

Coming out of the museum we were stopped in our tracks by the perfect afternoon sunlight glinting off Tower Bridge and the dome of St Paul’s. Despite the plummeting temperatures we took a brisk walk along the bank and across the river in awe of the buildings around us.

Tower Bridge on Wide angle wanderingsSouth Bank London on Wide angle wanderingsThames and Big Ben on wide angle wanderingsHelen and Tower Bridge on wide angle wanderingsTower Bridge and St Pauls on wide angle wanderings

Thanks to Mike for sharing his camera when I forgot to charge my batteries. Oops.

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