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Penzance has a wealth of good shops, cafés, pubs and restaurants. Its main thoroughfare is Market Jew Street, a busy shopping street that connects with the harbour area through the Wharfside Shopping Centre. Other places to explore are the pedestrianised Causewayhead and the delightful Chapel Street, an ancient thoroughfare that winds down to the seafront between handsome traditional buildings, specialist shops, pubs and restaurants.
Beyond the harbour is the open air Jubilee Bathing Pool designed in a nostalgic art-deco style. From the Jubilee Pool, Penzance's famous promenade, the longest in Cornwall, runs along the Mount's Bay shoreline.
Penzance is the ideal town to explore on foot. The main street is Market Jew Street, a busy shopping area with a flanking terrace that leads gently uphill to the handsome classical building of the Market House. Behind Market House is Market Place from where the other shopping streets of Causewayhead and Alverton Street lead off. From here the olde worlde Chapel Street winds down between attractive buildings that include the lavishly painted and ornamental Egyptian House, the 14th century Turk's Head Inn, the Admiral Benbow restaurant and the final flourish of the tall tower of the Church of St. Mary the Virgin.
Penzance's south-facing aspect and mild climate has nurtured the subtropical Morrab Gardens and the peaceful Penlee Memorial Park. Both lie between the centre of town and the seafront. The refurbished Penlee House Art Gallery and Museum in Penlee Park has an outstanding collection of works of art and has archaeological and local history sections.