The part of the holiday which had a strong element of pilgrimage to it though, was a visit to St Nectan's Glen and St Nectan's Kieve, between Boscastle and Tintagel. The little car park on the coast road where we could leave or car and begin our climb through the valley took a bit of finding, but once we found it we began our walk.
The Glen is a narrow, river cut one between Tintagel and Boscastle; we were worried that it might have been spoiled by the severe floods of the previous year which had devastated the area, but this proved not to be the case. The footpath was muddy and slippery, but the valley is beautiful and quiet.
It came as a surprise then to reach the top and find ourselves at the gates of a little cottage and tearoom, with a little meditation room there for visitors to use too. In order to reach the Kieve we had to pass through this garden and walk down a set of rock cut steps in the rock walls surrounding the top of the valley.
At the bottom of the steps you enter a magical place, shady under the trees above the rock sides and with a waterfall cascading down and through a round hole cut into one of the rock walls into a shallow pool. The photo doesn't do it justice, it has been lightened as it was too dark!
There is a clootie tree hung with ribbons and rags, and piles of pebbles in and beside the water, made by past pilgrims here, and candles burning. This is an amazingly serene and beautiful place.
We spent quite a while here, enjoying the peaceful atmosphere, and in my husband's case building his own little tower of stones as an offering to the spirit of the place, as so many other visitors had also done. It was with a sense of reluctance that we made our way back up the steps to make the walk back down through the valley to our car.
