Penzance sits at the end of the line, at the far western tip of Cornwall, in Mount's Bay, and it feels like it. The railway ends here, the ferry to the Isles of Scilly leaves from the harbour, and the climate is so mild that palms and exotic gardens grow outdoors. Looking east across the bay you can see St Michael's Mount, a tidal island topped with a castle and linked to Marazion by a cobbled causeway that is covered at high tide. The Jubilee Pool, a triangular sea-water lido from the 1930s, is a delight on a warm day.
The streets behind the promenade are narrow and full of character, with Chapel Street rising from the harbour in a procession of Georgian and Victorian houses. The town's name means holy headland in Cornish, and the old language still shows up on signs. Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera set in the town was a joke on the unlikely idea of pirates here, though in fact smuggling and wrecking were once real industries along this coast.
The riding is distinctive. Cornish lanes are sunken between high stone hedges, with grass on the crown and passing places that are always where you do not need them. The A30 runs fast and straight along the spine of the county, but the roads to the north coast, through the mining country of Pendeen and St Just, are wild, with granite engine houses and cliffs. The long ride east to the Tamar Valley passes through the heart of the old tin and copper country, which is recognised by UNESCO.
Penzance has nearly twenty thousand people, with fuel, supermarkets and many pubs and cafes. Look out for a proper Cornish pasty, with its crimped edge, and a cream tea, and be ready for the debate on whether the cream or the jam goes first. Newlyn, next door, is a working fishing port, and the fish is as fresh as it gets. Weather is changeable, with sea mist and sudden squalls, but the light, bright and silvery, is the reason artists have settled here for more than a century.