OK, British TV fans, do you recognize this rugged coastal village from a few seasons back?
No? Can't place it?
Does this look familiar?
Yup, Doc Martin's adopted town of "Port Wenn", known to those who live here as Port Isaac. There were lots of people taking the same photos, everyone trying to look so nonchalant, as if it was just any house. A local on his way to celebrate the birth of a new resident stopped long enough to snap our photo:
There was an organized tour for Doc Martin fans to point out all of the filming sites, but not while we were there (and I would not spring for the cash anyway), so we just walked around town with the other fans and soaked up the atmosphere. Quite surprisingly, the town was not really capitalizing on its recent fame. It definitely is a quaint Cornwall village complete with steep hills, deep gouges ripped out of the ocean side, impossibly narrow, winding lanes barely wide enough to squeeze a car through, doorsteps that open directly onto the lane, car parks on the outskirts of the village and spring flowers everywhere.
It was quite far off the beaten path, but worth the trip. Of course, there are dozens of picturesque villages dotting the northern coast of Cornwall; any one of them would be a great place to stop for tea and a biscuit.
As I was driving along the way to Port Isaac, I saw a large billboard type sign (by the way, the English do not have billboards and I have not missed them one bit) that called attention to the area as being the setting for the Poldark series. That series was on TV so long ago that I had totally forgotten about it. I didn't see anything else about it, so I'm guessing that maybe when the show was popular about three decades ago, there was some tourist activity.
While on a quest to see make-believe places, we also stopped a few miles up the road to see Tintagel, legendary home of King Arthur. It turns out that the castle is in such total ruins that it is just a pile of rocks here and there. Larry had seen it on a trip he made with his family before we were married, and I'm not much on King Arthur lore, so I decided to skip that particular oddity.
Instead, we visited an old post office in Tintagel. Like a lot of buildings, it was built in stages over a few centuries. It is truly amazing how many buildings are still standing that were originally started 400 years ago (or more!). This hearth is part of the original house which later became the post office.
This chair and another one very similar were made in the 1600's and were being used until this property was given to the National Trust. They were in remarkably good condition. Against one wall there was a bench with a back, called a "settle", built in 1620 and visitors were invited to sit on it, if they wished. Hard to believe.
Although this photo doesn't really show it very well, the very old roof rippled like ocean waves. It had sagged in a few places and the tiles just settled in and kept on going.
The post office had the most delightful little garden in the back, a great place to sit and rest.
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