From Bristol, it was a 2-hour 40-minute drive to the north side of the Cornish coast. From London it would be a 4-hour 30-minute drive. We arrived at 1.30 PM and found a car park next to the ticket office. Tickets can be booked in advance for entry at a specific timeslot. Pre-booked tickets cost 13 GBP or free if you’re an English Heritage Member. Walk-up tickets cost 14.50 GBP1 but you should pre-book during peak periods as it’s a very popular site. From the ticket office, you can follow the main path or take a trail that goes up to a viewpoint and then joins back to the main path before the bridge. We took the detour route via the viewpoint and it took about 10 minutes to get to the top. From here you get an elevated view of Tintagel and the new footbridge (finished on August 9th, 2019). It then takes about 5 minutes to walk down to the bridge. On the way you pass a control point where you have to present your ticket, so make sure you keep your ticket with you. Before the footbridge, visitors had to go down some steps to the beach and then up some steps on the other side. In the 13th century, a natural land bridge connected the mainland to the headland of Tintagel. However, erosion has caused the natural land bridge to collapse and now this new footbridge restores the original route to Tintagel.
Whilst crossing the bridge, you get great views of the surrounding landscape and the previous steps to cross to the other side. After crossing, we arrived at some ruins. There are information panels throughout giving information on the buildings that would have stood here. They also give a history of how Tintagel was used as a trading port during the age of the Roman Empire. Next, we followed the path to the top of the headland and found some rocks to sit on halfway through. The view from here is amazing of the hilly shores and beach down below. We continued down the path and arrived at the Gallos Sculpture representing King Arthur at the end of the headland island. It can be quite busy since everyone is taking pictures with the statue. We then found some boulders at the end of the headland to rest on, enjoying the seaside views.
At around 3 PM, we started heading back to go down to the beach. At the bridge, there are some steps on the right-hand side that go down to the beach. It’s a small sand and pebble beach with a rock island in the middle which people were jumping off. The water is freezing so we didn’t get in. There are two caves, one on either side of the beach. Going through the caves can be tricky since there are lots of rocks and boulders. They also fill up with water so keep an eye on the tide. We stayed at the beach until around 5 PM before heading back up and on one of the trails to a viewpoint. It takes about 20 minutes to follow the trail up to the cliff opposite Tintagel Castle. There are great views of Tintagel and the seaside from here. We stayed here until about 5.45 PM before heading back to the town to get some food. It was about 6.20 PM by the time we got back to the town and quite a lot of places were closing. We managed to find a cafe selling Cornish Pasties, so we grabbed a few of those and headed back to Bristol.
