A week in Devon and Cornwall

Don't know about Plymouth. I stayed in Exeter and Truro for one night each (last-minute booking challenges in the coastal towns) and enjoyed them both. I find I always like the non-coastal places because they're less touristy. My two coastal stops were Mevagissey and St. Ives. The latter is one of the busiest, most touristy, coastal towns but is good for visitors interested in art and ceramics. Mevagissey is small but still has traffic issues. I suspect traffic issues are a given in Cornwall in July.

I believe the guild hall in Exeter is a major monument, but I didn't get to see the inside.

I liked both the Eden Project and the Lost Gardens of Heligan. They're close to each other, but both are quite large. I think trying to do both on the same day would just result in paying two (rather expensive) entry fees and rushing. But when I pay to go inside a tourist attraction, I do tend to want to walk on every path, etc.

My general tip for the entire area: If you want to eat your dinner sitting down in a food establishment (as opposed to consuming fish and chips on the jetty), you had better make a reservation somewhere. I'm not sure about lunch, because for me that was just something I grabbed and munched on as I walked around.

I haven't visited Plymouth but as I think I mentioned maybe in an earlier thread you had on Devon and Cornwall that I did a Road Scholar program that stayed in Falmouth. I really enjoyed that town but I'm not sure about parking if you are driving. I stayed at a large, old seafront hotel.

As far as things I enjoyed, I, too, loved Lost Gardens of Heligan. Didn't do the Eden Project but we did a china clay mine tour at Wheal Martyn just outside St Austell. I'm not big on mine tours but it was more interesting than the Levant or Geevor Tin Mine we also did. (Geevor is also on the Rick Steves Villages of Southern England tour).

I liked St Michaels Mount but it is pretty steep and slippery up to the front door of the house. The tides here are interesting and it was cool to watch the walkway out to the isle be covered with water and then watch it recede.

I thought the Iron Age Chysauster Ancient Village was quite interesting. It also has a neolithic Fogou which is an underground passage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chysauster_Ancient_Village

I didn't much care for St Ives but it was school half term and it was jammed with families so more people around than I like. I did like Mevagissey as well as St Mawes (you can take a ferry across from Falmouth), Charlestown, Fowey and Boscastle. I've visited Port Isaac twice and while I was excited the first time because I'm a Doc Martin fan, really, it's terribly crowded and you can see everything in about an hour.

About 30 years ago I took a 6 night coach tour, with a full day (2 nights) in Plymouth. I still remember how much I enjoyed it, especially the sailing history, like touring a typical home of a ship's captain and seeing where the Mayflower sailed from . . . the first Plymouth Rock.

Thanks, I appreciate all the helpful comments.

After analyzing them and doing some research, I can see that there are many places to see and many good places to stay.

We are thinking of staying in Exeter for three nights, then moving closer to Land's End for the last three nights.

Considering
Truro
Looe
PERRANPORTH
TINTAGEL

We will likely take the train from Heathrow into Paddington, then the train out to Exeter.
Then we will rent a car for six nights.

We stayed in Plymouth one night on our way to Cornwall. We enjoyed the Barbican area and Plymouth Hoe area, the Mayflower Steps, and Sutton Harbor. The view from the top floor breakfast room at the Holiday Inn on Armada Way in Plymouth is wonderful with the ferris wheel and waterfront. We also stopped in Truro for part of a day. The cathedral in Truro is beautiful. Another place we absolutely loved was the Lanhydrock National Trust Estate near Bodmin. It was well worth a stop. Have a great time in Cornwall!

Mousehole is a wonderful village to visit, if not stay in.
Loved Minack Theatre, tintagel, st michaels mount and just driving around Cornwall, which many feel the opposite about.
Skip Lands End. It’s such a waste.

We are planning to take the train to Exeter from either Paddington or Reading.

Apparently, there is a bus that goes from Heathrow to Reading. Our flight gets in Heathrow from Atlanta at 11:30am. I can save a lot buying tickets in advance.

How much time should I plan to go through immigration, collect luggage and take the bus to Reading?

Trains leave about once an hour.

I think your plan is a good one, but give yourselves plenty of time for that LHR-Reading transfer. Our British friends will have better advice about that.

Acraven is usually spot on, but I'll say I didn't like the Eden Project -- just a giant overcrowded botanical garden. Didn't really like the Heligan gardens either, but the autumn weather was bad and we were tired from traipsing all over Eden that morning, so YMMV. I'll join the widespread negativity about Land's End itself, but there's plenty of beautiful coastal scenery to take its place. St. Michael's Mount is good, and there's a boat you can take if the tide's high.

Besides Exeter, I'd suggest Truro as your Cornwall base, lets you drive to either the north or south coast. Cornwall roads are very slow even in the off season, must be worse in July, so allow plenty of time to get around. (One reason neither the Romans nor the Saxons conquered Cornwall is how hard it was to go through multiple north-south ranges of hills. They also produced the little harbors that made fishing and smuggling so important back in the day.)

I stayed at Lyonesse B&B in Falmouth last summer and it was excellent- Falmouth was a great base for seeing St Michael's Mount and the Penwith Peninsula. For the Tintagel/Bodmin Moor area, we stayed one night at Jamaica Inn and one at the Wellington Hotel in Boscastle, highly recommend both.

Thanks, we are staying in Truro for four nights (two nights at Exeter).

Mevagissey is well worth a visit, there are a couple of parking lots at the edge of village, it’s a five minute walk into the village.