Dog Friendly Cornwall – Best Bits

We wrote this post as part of a year long collaboration as a canine critic for Canine Cottages.

This was our very first trip to Cornwall, and we have since been many many times after completely falling in love with Cornwall as a dog friendly destination. You’ll find below a series of best bits from our weekend, from the accommodation we stayed in to towns and beaches visited. If you’re looking for a more comprehensive list of dog friendly beaches, we have a post for it here.

The cottage

Arriving to a proper Cornish cream tea laid out for us and a tin of treats, bed and bowl for Poppy we knew immediately we were going to love it at Harbour Breeze. This cottage was pretty special, in fact we’re already talking about planning our next trip to stay there! With plenty of space, spotless modern bathrooms and all the mod cons (including wine fridge!) we had everything we needed for a perfect week away. The cottage was within an easy 5 minute walk of Charlestown harbour which was a perfect base for the week. We especially loved visiting the dog friendly cafes of  Short and Strong for their AMAZING waffles and Charlies Coffee House for a morning coffee.

Lots of dog friendly towns and things to do…

A real highlight of our trip was a wine tour and tasting at the dog friendly Trevibban Mill Vineyard. It’s never something we’d have expected to be dog friendly but Poppy was welcomed on our tour and given treats while we were all drinking wine!

We were also surprised how dog friendly the little towns we stopped off at were, these were some of our must visits:

St Ives

With amazing beaches and so many dog friendly shops, St Ives was a lovely place to spend a few hours exploring. Make sure to stop off at Moomaid of Zennor for a yummy ice cream on the harbour front.

Mevagissey

A quaint little fishing town with brightly coloured cottages lining the streets down to the harbour. We absolutely loved visiting Teacup Tearoom for a delicious cream tea. This was of the most dog friendly cafes we’ve ever visited, with towels, blankets, beds and dog jammie dodgers for Poppy to tuck in to!

Padstow

We couldn’t come to Cornwall without a stop in Padstow. It was definitely the best spot for shopping all week, and we loved how welcome Poppy was in all of the little shops. We stopped by at Greens of Padstow for incredible burgers with views overlooking the Padstow harbour.

Beaches that will make you fall in love with Cornwall…

One of the things we were most excited about on our Cornwall trip was spending plenty of time on the beach, especially given all of the sunshine we were lucky enough to have! The crystal clear seas and white sands were honestly breathtaking and we couldn’t quite believe we were in England! Here are some of our favourites:

Porthkidney Sands

An enormous sandy beach perfect for Poppy to run around and play frisbee. We parked in Lelant and walked along this beach and on the coast path into St Ives before catching the train back!

Daymer Bay

A beautiful long sandy beach that connects to Rock beach at low tide. This was a really dog friendly beach and Poppy had so much fun playing with all the other dogs. We walked along the beach to Rock and caught the ferry over to Padstow for lunch.

Bedruthan Steps

One of our favourite beaches of the whole trip. The views from the clifftop are spectacular but if you don’t mind A LOT of steps, head down to see the truly incredible beaches dotted with enormous stacks of rocks. (Make sure you go at low tide, the beach isn’t there at all at high tide!).

Mawgan Porth

We found this beach almost by accident on a walk along the coast path from Bedruthan Steps. A great dog friendly beach with lots of space for Poppy to run around!

Porthcurno and Pedn Vounder

With turquoise water and white sand, these two beaches were really special. We parked up at the Minack Theatre and walked down the cliff path to get the views of Porthcurno from above, then along the coast path to see the views of Pedn Vounder.

This trip was the most amazing ending to a fantastic year discovering dog friendly spots around the UK as #CanineCritics. We’ll continue to add to our Cornwall section of the website as much as we can with each visit.

Thanks for reading,

Cara, Andy and Poppy x