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Across the water from the Roseland Peninsula stands Falmouth, Cornwall's largest port and one whose colourful maritime heritage is enshrined in its long waterfront and the newly opened National Maritime Museum Cornwall, one of Cornwall's Landmark Attractions. Falmouth, and its neighbour, the ancient town of Penryn, belong to the sea.
Falmouth's linear sequence of main streets runs one block behind a matching sequence of waterfront quays and piers that border the great sweep of the estuary.Narrow alleyways link the bustling world of shops, pubs cafés and fine restaurants with the equally busy waterfront, where small craft of all kinds come and go and lines of moored yachts lie offshore.
Further east lie Falmouth's major docks, located below the high ground of Pendennis Point and the 16th century Pendennis Castle, built in tandem with its smaller equivalent of St. Mawes Castle across the water to guard the estuary in belligerent times.
Falmouth adds even more to its appeal by featuring a fine series of sheltered, sun trap beaches along the southern shores of Pendennis Point. Here at Gyllyngvase, Swanpool, Castle and Maenporth are perfect family beaches.
Falmouth is the gateway to that other great region of West Cornwall the Helford and The Lizard. In an exquisite reprise of the wooded tidal rivers and creeks between Truro and Falmouth, the Helford Estuary offers a serene world of woods and water. Here, numerous paths and tracks lead you enticingly in and out of dappled sunlight to hidden corners such as Frenchman's Creek, a name immortalised in the writings of Daphne du Maurier and a symbol of Cornwall's romantic freebooting past of pirates and smugglers.