This place is magical. The coast and the ocean are most magic—powerful and primitive—and the slate teeth and encrustation of human habitation on the hills and headland add the extra frisson of enchantment. No doubt the once and future king was conceived and born here, in idea if not in reality, but it hardly matters. The salt mist mixes sea with air in the way the common-place world blends with the magical. [2003]
Thousand year old Tintagel PO: 
Cornish pasties:
The youth hostel is incredibly beautiful, perched on the cliff at the edge of the world, with nothing between us and Hy Brazil or the Bermoothes but the wide, color-changing ocean.
I hear the wind blowing across the slate and coastal grass and flowers, and thudding in the convolutions of my own ear. Little birds tweet and twitter. The gulls cry raucously or plaintively, and always I hear the susurration of the sea against the cliffs. Half an hour ago, as the tide retreats, I heard a repeating boom like great cannons in the rocky caverns beneath us.
They’ve built a new stairway down to the beach and Merlin’s cave so that people can stay longer without being trapped by the tide. The sea, deep blue and green, comes in nearly waveless but very fast. The water surges through the cave from one side of the headland to the other. Chris Bartholomew and Spencer waded into it and we could hear their shouts echoing like mermaids (or like the sailors being drowned by them). [2003]
Thousand year old Tintagel PO: Cornish pasties:
The youth hostel is incredibly beautiful, perched on the cliff at the edge of the world, with nothing between us and Hy Brazil or the Bermoothes but the wide, color-changing ocean.I hear the wind blowing across the slate and coastal grass and flowers, and thudding in the convolutions of my own ear. Little birds tweet and twitter. The gulls cry raucously or plaintively, and always I hear the susurration of the sea against the cliffs. Half an hour ago, as the tide retreats, I heard a repeating boom like great cannons in the rocky caverns beneath us.
The stone on which I sit is padded with lichen (still none too soft). To the left in the water is an arrowhead-shaped island. To the right is Tintagel Head, one or two human shapes silhouetted on top. Julie sits on the rock far below me, writing in her journal. Above me is the little, low building with the roof running down to the ground, whitewashed and slate-roofed. The wind is colder. John comes out to sit by me, then complains when I talk to him (he wants to write in his journal). OK. The ocean is wide and goes on forever. I am reduced to cliché. [2005]
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