Sacred Cornwall

Arrive at Penzance station — the furthest you can go on the train, as Evie will tell you — where she'll welcome you to the very tip of Cornwall. The drive takes you to The Godolphin, a boutique hotel in the heart of Penzance with views across Mount's Bay. Join Evie for a briefing on the week and your first dinner together.

Begin in the West Penwith landscape Evie knows best. Follow a hidden woodland path to Madron Baptistry and its ancient holy well — a roofless medieval chapel where pilgrims once sought healing and offerings still hang from the trees. Walk across open fields to the Merry Maidens, a perfect circle of nineteen Bronze Age stones said to be girls turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath. Visit the magnificent church of St Buryan, founded by a Celtic saint and one of Cornwall's finest, before lunch at Evie's favourite secret crab sandwich spot — she knows the fisherman who catches the crab and the person who makes them.

Head into the moorland above the coast to Men-an-Tol, an enigmatic holed stone that has stood on this hillside for four thousand years — legend says that crawling through it could cure disease. Walk down to Zennor, a tiny village clinging to the cliffs, and visit its medieval church where a carved mermaid sits on a 600-year-old bench end, one of Cornwall's most beguiling legends. Continue along the coast to St Ives and settle into the Harbour Hotel for the next two nights.

A day of Cornwall's finest sacred architecture. Drive east to Truro, Cornwall's only city, for a guided tour of the cathedral — a soaring Victorian Gothic Revival masterpiece. Explore the Georgian city streets before heading to St Just in Roseland, where a 13th-century church sits in a subtropical garden that tumbles down to the water's edge — widely considered one of the most beautiful churchyards in the world. Return to St Ives for dinner overlooking the harbour.

Transfer northeast across Bodmin Moor, Cornwall's wild granite upland. Walk to the Hurlers — three stone circles aligned on the moor, said to be men turned to stone for playing the Cornish game of hurling on the Sabbath. Visit Trethevy Quoit, a Neolithic burial chamber over five thousand years old, then continue to St Neot, a quiet village with one of the finest collections of medieval stained glass in England. Arrive at Camelot Castle Hotel, perched on the cliffs above Tintagel.

Your final day begins with Tintagel Castle — the legendary birthplace of King Arthur — where medieval ruins cling to the cliffs above the Atlantic and the sense of myth is impossible to shake. Visit the Norman church of St Materiana, standing alone on the windswept headland as it has for nearly a thousand years. After lunch, descend through ancient woodland to St Nectan's Glen, a sacred waterfall where the water drops sixty feet. A farewell dinner to close the week — a journey through Cornwall's spiritual story from its oldest stones to its most enduring legend.

Say goodbye to the coast and transfer to Bodmin Parkway station for your journey home — or onward to your next adventure. After a week with Evie, you'll leave with a Cornwall that goes far deeper than the scenery — a landscape where every stone, church and holy well has a story, and where the sacred and the beautiful have always been the same thing.