Page 52 - Travel Leisure - USA (February 2020)

n an
E X P E R I E N C E S taxi ride to the Star Castle (star-castle.co.uk;
doubles from $97), a family-run hotel set within a
16th-century garrison.
But with remoteness comes an intense and
memorable sense of place. The Isles, I soon
discovered, are a place where you go to be rather
than to do. Just taking a morning stroll feels like
an uplifting celebration of the senses: the
delicate scent of the Isles’ famous narcissi, the
taste of salt air, endless blue skies. Leave the
bucket list behind: here you feel deep
satisfaction seeing a pod of porpoises or a colony
of seals or just rambling among ruins (Scilly has
more than all of Cornwall put together). People
tend to return year after year, which means the
new visitor needs to plan ahead (a London art
dealer told me he had booked his spot at a
campsite a year in advance).
Scilly feels as timeless as the tides that exert
so much influence over daily life on the islands.
It’s the sort of place where a dramatically placed
oceanfront rope swing, just down the path from
a community apple orchard and next to an
ancient burial site, counts as a genuine
attraction (more than one person suggested we
visit). Rather than flashy nightclubs, there’s the
Bishop & Wolf (staustell brewery.co.uk), where on
a weekly basis you can hear locals play
traditional folk songs on fiddles and other
instruments—feel free to bring your own.
There’s also the Low Tide Event, a pop-up food
and music festival that takes place several times
a year, depending on the tides, in the channel
separating Tresco and Bryher. Normally 20 feet
underwater, on certain days it’s temporarily
dry enough to traverse.
Each isle has its own distinct feel, so we spent
our days shuttling between them on the vessels
of the St. Mary’s Boatmen’s Association—one of
the companies that provides transport between
the islands. St. Mary’s is the largest and most
populated, with actual two-way roads and the
most dining options. At its newest restaurant,
On the Quay (onthequay.com; entrées $20–$32),
T+L A-LIST INTEL
“Tahiti’s Le Taha’a Island Resort offers ‘drift snorkeling,’ where instead of paddling, you let the current push
you through the crystal-clear waters, which are teeming with brightly colored parrotfish and coral.”
— FRENCH POLYNESIA SPECIALIST CHRISTINA TURRINI (CHRISTINA.TURRINI@FROSCH.COM)
48 T R AV E L + L E I S U R E | F E B R U A R Y
London
Isles of Scilly
we ate delicate pan-seared scallops and watched
the boats glide by in the harbor.
We walked the two-mile length of St. Martin’s
on immaculate coastal paths lined with heather,
gorse, and blackberries, stopping at Adam’s
(adams fish and chips.co.uk; entrées $9–$16), for
phenomenal fish-and-chips, and the Island
Bakery (theisland bakery-stmartins.com), for
Cornish pasties and ginger cakes. Then we toured
Cosmos (cosmosscilly.co.uk), the EU-funded
observatory, to stare at the sun through filtered
telescopes and “rockpooled” with the Isles of
Scilly Wildlife Trust (ios-wildlife trust.org.uk),
turning over clumps of seaweed at low tide to
uncover what to us were exotic marine specimens.
On Tresco, the island where Archipelago was
filmed, we spent most of our day at the Abbey
Gardens (tresco.co.uk), which are right next to the
ruins of a Benedictine abbey. They are filled with
thousands of tropical flowers and plants, as well as
the Valhalla Collection, a grouping of gorgeously
polychromatic, haunting ship’s figureheads From left: The
salvaged from shipwrecks off the Isles. Garrison Bell
On windblown, rocky St. Agnes, I tasted Tower, in Hugh
Town, the
some of the most luxuriant ice cream I’ve ever
capital of Scilly;
had at Troytown Farm (troytown.co.uk), which the main path
claims to be the smallest dairy in the U.K. On on St. Martin’s.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY MAY PARSEY
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