Winter shows Cornwall at its most dramatic and romantic: the sea is at its wildest, with crashing waves rolling onto deserted beaches; empty fishing boats creak on their moorings in quiet harbours; winds sweep the barren moorland and snow capped tors.
If you wrap up there are some bracing winter walks with great scenery. The river valleys can be enchanting in Winter with icicles forming on twigs in the water and mists filling the valleys in the early mornings. Make sure you bring wellies not just walking boots as in river valleys where there are cows grazing there can occasionally be patches of ankle deep mud.
Winter provides a number of opportunities for dramatic photography. North Cornwall's fishing villages such as Boscastle, Port Quin and Port Isaac are free from tourists and in winter the light from the sun low in the sky picks out all the features and casts long shadows, making this an ideal time to explore and take great pictures.
In mid-winter the sun rises over Bodmin Moor between 7am and 8am from the east-northeast direction. You can get some fantastic sunrise photos over the moors from St Breward with stone circles and the tors of Roughtor siluetted against the red sky.
During a big storm, huge waves often explode into headlands creating a fountain of spray. Penhallic point and the small point just to the north of it are good spots to see this. During a really big storm, waves have been known to break right over Gull Rock at Trebarwith Strand. The spray from the sea can form a curtain of mist below the cliffs and huge drifts of sea foam can blow across the beaches. At Backways Cove the sea foam is trapped against the cliffs and forms mini foam tornadoes as the wind whips it up.
Shelter can be sought in cosy Inns, many of which have log fires and some also have traditional folk music (see our section on pubs for more information).
The winter offers some excellent birding, especially when severe weather in the rest of the country forces huge numbers of wildfowl, waders and thrushes southwest in search of milder conditions. Flocks of starlings can often be seen on Davidstow against a flaming red sky as the sun rises over Bodmin Moor.
Winter is the perfect time to visit popular attractions such as the Eden Project and the National Aquarium when you will pretty much have the place to yourself and not have to worry about avoiding queues. Most of these national centres have year-round events so it's worth checking out their websites to see what is going on.
Well known restaurants such as Rick Stein's in Padstow and Jamie Oliver's Fifteen at Watergate Bay are also much easier to book in Winter. Alternatively if you fancy some forraging you can harvest the young shoots of bladderwrack seaweed which is delicious in a noodle soup with fresh ginger, or some mussels on a low spring tide.
Even when it's raining there are still quite a few things to do - see our page on things to do on a rainy day and our interactive map of things close by you can nip out to when the rain stops.
You may also want to check out our facebook page where there is a photo gallery of winter pictures and we post links to seasonally-relevant items of interest.
