Afternoon tea consists of a pot of tea, sandwiches cut into fingers, scones with clotted cream and jam, and an assortment of cakes and pastries. Many visitors to St Ives take their photo in front of it and post their pictures onto Love St Ives. Only then can you call yourself a true St Ives Lover! The main boat trips go to either Seal Island (about 3.5 miles down the coast) or to Godrevy. There are also boats for private charter and fishing trips. People swim in the sea all year round in St Ives. Not me, I hasten to add, I have an aversion to too much cold! I’ve got lots of friends down here that swim in the sea not matter what the season and they love it.

Walk through the doors into a wonderful courtyard full of small shops, galleries and studios. You can watch artists at work here and buy amazing works of art and crafts, direct from the maker. St Ives has an amazing range of places to eat out in. From top notch fine dining, to takeaways. I'm in the middle of writing an epic blog post about all the different options for eating out in St Ives.Porthmeor Beach Café is also supplied by the local company, Original Coffee Ltd, so you can be sure to find a tasty caffeine fix here. There are lots of places offering some quite wonderful spa treatments in St Ives. The big grand hotels have quite elaborate (and expensive) spas with pools. They offer some super spa treatments and you can also pay to use the facilities for the day. There are also a few smaller salons and shops that offer lovely treatments too. Perfect for special occasions or just a treat, devour finger sandwiches, cakes, freshly baked scones and Cornish clotted cream. The question is though, have you ever had your ice cream stolen by a seagull? If you have you can call yourself a true St Ives lover. Another hotspot on Lifeboat Hill; Scoff Troff Café is a great shout for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Cor blimey who doesn’t love a nice chunky proper Sunday lunch out? No cooking, hurrah, no washing up, even more hurrah! If you drive (or walk) out of St Ives towards Carbis Bay, there is a park on the left hand side called Richmond Play Park. It has swings, slides, spinny things and a dog walking field. I believe there is funding in place to get this park overhauled, but they have been talking about it for a few years and nothing has happened yet. Just a word of warning, it gets really cold at this park as it faces out to sea! Bring warm things to wear if you are planning on standing around while your child plays.Scoff Troff is a brilliant cafe in Market Place in St Ives. It does a superb range of food, including a rather good cream tea! Porthmeor and Porthminster Beaches allow dogs on all year except from 15th May to 30th Sept between 10am and 6pm. Porthgwidden and the Harbour Beaches allow dogs on all year except from 1st July to 31st August between 10am and 6pm. Bamaluz, Breakwater and Lambeth Beaches allow dogs on all year, but access is limited at high tides when the beaches disappear. For the dreamers, here is the house that many people would love to live in! It is called Quay House and sits right on Harbour Beach in St Ives. Smeaton’s Pier has 2 lighthouses - the smaller one halfway along was built when the original pier was much shorter. They extended the pier is 1890 and built the new, larger lighthouse. Why the 3 arches underneath? These were built to help with the circulation of water to prevent the sand building up in the harbour.

The NCI Coastguard Lookout station is right at the top of The Island, overlooking the whole of St Ives Bay. It is run by a team of volunteers who watch over the coastal activity in St Ives Bay. They also monitor weather and sea conditions and provide information for mariners, walkers and other users of the sea and coast. A visit to St Ives is made even better by playing our fun filled game, The Great St Ives Pasty Dash. You will get to know St Ives like never before, and it is the perfect thing to do on a rainy afternoon. St Ives is a brilliant place to go shopping. As well as having some big high street names such as Fat Face, Seasalt and Joules, there are lots of amazing independent shops. Fore Street is the main shopping area, but there are some excellent shops in The Drill Hall, just off Royal Square, and along Tregenna and the High Street. As we were well into the holiday season, it was too busy to be able to remove the commercial kitchen, so we had to close that room off and over the next two weeks we turned what was a café into a beautiful shop.Jam first, jam first! Whatever you do put your jam on first, you are in Cornwall for heavens sake, not Devon! If you are looking for a posh afternoon cream tea, then Una is the place to go. I'm a bit biased as I go here a lot - I like to think that if I use the pool I can eat as many cream teas as I like!