Map of Truro.

Inside Truro Cathedral.

     Our next stop was Truro, home of the Truro Cathedral. Truro is the archetypal County Town - elegant and charming with an air of distinction. Its cobbled streets and tiny alleyways, known as "opes", contain some of the nations household names alongside many tiny specialist shops.

     The picture postcard image of Truro is of its magnificent Cathedral spires reaching up from the heart of the City. It is these spires which have given their name to the annual Three Spires International Arts Festival, which takes place in and around Truro in late May and early June.

We don't know what this thing at the Cornwall Museum is either, but it looks like a dog and it's made from boots. A doot?

     Indeed, Truro is never lacking in entertainment. the streets are a stage for colourful and sometimes zany buskers who perform anything from mime to magic and fire eating. We saw only one mime, and he was pretty scary, so we avoided him. The City's parks host a season of free daytime entertainment including Jazz in the Park and Punch and Judy shows.

     Truro houses the Royal Cornwall Museum where visitors can soak up the history of Cornwall from the Stone Age to the present day. The museum also hosts special exhibitions from as far afield as Japan. The Egyptian exhibit was tiny, but did feature an unwrapped (eeeww!) mummy.

     At the top of Lemon Street stands the impressive monument to the explorer Richard Lander, who, by the age of twenty one, had visited most of the known World.