We set out later than planned the morning we woke in Plymouth, driving to Cornwall and arriving just after midday. Our first stop in this beautiful, most-western county of England was at St Michael’s Mount (www.stmichaelsmount.co.uk). This castle and priory, founded in the 11^th century by Edward the Confessor, is accessible by foot only at low tide. At other times, you must hire a small boat to take you across. The tide was as yet too high when we arrived, so we had to take a boat across, but we were able to return over the footpath strewn with seaweed and algae. 

St Michael’s Mount is the legendary home of the giant Cormoran, who was slain by Jack the Giant Killer. It emerges dramatically from the waters of Mount Bay at Marazion. Ancient Roman historians believed the mount was the island of Ictis, an important center for the Cornish tin trade during the Iron Age. It is dedicated to the archangel St Michael who, according to legend, appeared here in 485. When the Normans conquered England in 1066, they were struck by the island’s resemblance to their own Mont-St-Michel, whose Benedictine monks were invited to build a small abbey here. The abbey was absorbed into a fortress at the Dissolution, when Henry VIII set up a chain of coastal defenses to counter an expected attack from France. In 1659 St Michael’s Mount was purchased by Sir John St Aubyn whose descendants subsequently turned the fortress into a magnificent house. 




 

We greatly enjoyed our visit to St Michael’s Mount and both ranked the castle among the top three we visited while in the UK. Its magnificent location coupled with the grandeur of the buildings and its intriguing mix of old and new, easily made this a favorite tourist site. We spent a significant amount of time on the battlements staring out in all four directions from the island. To the south, lay the English Channel and further out the Atlantic Ocean, the skies low and hazy over the choppy, steel blue waves.  In the distance to the east, we could just make out the shape of the Lizard Peninsula, at the tip of which lies England’s southernmost point. To the north, sat the small village of Marazion with its brightly colored cottages. And to the west rested the much larger town of Penzance, the end of the railway line and the most westerly major town in England, where a mild climate enables palm trees to grow along the coastline. Penzance was immortalized by Gilbert and Sullivan in The Pirates of Penzance.