Penzance in Cornwall, England

© Murray Bosley Photography/Getty Image

The sea pool of Penzance. Penzance

This bustling coastal town is Penzance in Cornwall, forever linked with pirates thanks to the famous Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera. These days, visitors are more likely to be tourists, attracted by the wide sandy beaches, rocky cliffs and hidden coves once frequented by smugglers and wreckers. Jutting out from the seafront in our homepage photo is the U.K.’s largest seawater lido, the Jubilee Pool, which has been welcoming bathers since 1935. This triangular Art Deco pool offers a chilly dip for the brave, but for those who like it warmer, a separate saltwater pool is heated to a balmy 35C by pumping heat from a geothermal well 410 metres below ground level.

Penzance sits inside Mount’s Bay, dominated by views of St Michael’s Mount, the tidal island and castle linked to the coast by a causeway which disappears at high tide. There’s plenty of history to explore here. The name Penzance comes from “Pen Sans” in Cornish, meaning holy headland – a chapel was established by early Christians here over 1,000 years ago. The town has been a commercial centre since the 1600s and boomed thanks to the maritime trade of the 18th and 19th centuries and, since the 1860s, the Great Western Railway link to London.

West Cornwall does a brisk tourist trade in the summer months, with holidaymakers drawn to its remote moors, sandy beaches, crystal clear sea, Neolithic tombs, ancient tin mines and ferry trips to the Scilly Isles from the most westerly major harbour on the English Channel.