Ruggedly Beautiful Cornwall

The rugged beauty of the Cornwall Coast was unforgettable. We've shot many shows filled with gorgeous natural images, but this show will be one of the most beautiful.

Nearly our entire Cornwall script was dedicated to the southwest extreme of this county -- the Penwith Peninsula.

While we were blessed with generally good weather, I planned to have parts of three days in nearly every region (over the 18 days of our shoot) to be able to dance around the rain. The plan worked very well. But vacationers didn't have that flexibility. I call British beachgoers "armadillo tourists" -- their determination to enjoy the beach perseveres through almost any weather. If you wait long enough, it seems the steady wind blows away the clouds. (And then it blows away the blue sky, too.)

Armadillo tourist with umbrella gazing at Mousehole harbor.

Southwest England is dotted with interesting sights -- like the Minack Theatre, which is carved out of the rocks and offers every attendee a first-class view.

This scene -- with diners and drinkers spilling out of a pub and filling its seafront terrace (which happens to be in Old Portsmouth, the major port town of southern England) -- captures the vitality I felt throughout England. People seem to be working hard...and playing hard, too. Families are loving their little children. Seniors are out and about, sharing their golden years with loved ones. And the young-adult crowd is diligently keeping Britain's brewers as profitable as ever.

This is Day 88 of my 100 Days in Europe series. As I research my guidebooks and make new TV shows, I'm reporting on my experiences and lessons learned in Vienna, the Alps, the Low Countries, England, Siena, and beyond. Find more on my travel blog.

(This post originally appeared at blog.ricksteves.com/blog/cornwall.)