By David Fischer

I hear the latest ruse it to back-pack your way to Albania, to find semi-deserted beaches with beautiful fine sand and drink cocktails in the sunset.

Well fortunately with Cornwall you don’t have to trek quite so far to find such idyllic harmony on the coast; there’s also the option of which coast, wind depending, you chose to bathe on, plus the food is markedly more appealing.

Many holiday makers are familiar with north coast towns of Newquay and Bude, maybe even the south coast towns of Fowey and Polperro, so well captured by Eric Haines; but how familiar are they with the far south west of Cornwall, that tucked away corner which no one seems to realise until till they’ve passed Truro, just how far it is off the beaten track; it’s actually like doing a west turn off the beaten track.

There’s more secluded beaches in Penwith (official name for the far west), than I should think anywhere else in the country, and the back drop to some of these beaches, well, is pure paradise, unfortunately they probably don’t have a cocktail bar located on them (remember we’re miles from Newquay), saying that though, one cove does have a rather good hut selling pasties, ice cream and cakes.

Before the internet came along most of these beaches were even more secluded, but since the dawn of the WWW someone did a lot of ground work and decided to advertise all the far west’s beaches and give very good directions on how to get to them. This is admirable and good publicity for an area which needs it, but if you want a hermetic idyll, don’t worry there’s still plenty, even with excellent directions, that are for the more agile and thus stay quiet.

But Cornwall’s not only about the coast, be it that its everywhere, it also has a pretty fine cuisine and no self respecting restaurateur would use produce from out of the county, in fact most source their produce from within a three mile radius – and it’s not just fish, even though once you’ve tried a pan fried John Dory you’ll never be the same again, there’s vegetables fresher than your own allotment and beef you spotted from your car windows earlier in the day.

So with predictions of a dry, or was that drier, summer (heard today on ‘World at One’) and with everyone seemingly falling in love with an English holiday again, will the quiet Cornish lanes get the hum of the city, will there be parties on the miles of golden sand, or secret sandy coves, Cornwall will be pleased either way, it enjoys the visitors, only remember it’s not only open in the summer.