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Sunday, July 07, 2002

WHAT TO DO IN SCILLY WHEN IT RAINS:

Read a book by the fire in a hotel lounge. Go to the museum in Hugh Town. Check out the art galleries and potter's studios. Warm up with a midafternoon "cream tea" -- a pot of hot tea accompanied by fresh scones (basically baking-powder biscuits), slathered with strawberry jam and Cornish cream, like sweet sour cream and about that thick. Then put on your rain gear and walk off the calories.

WHAT TO DO IN SCILLY WHEN IT DOESN'T RAIN:

Take a little boat to Tresco and see the Abbey Gardens and the owners' collection of figureheads, many of them washed up on Scilly after shipwrecks. Go to Bryher, hike that island's green lumpy hills, and watch Atlantic breakers leap and crash against its western rocks. On any of the islands, keep your eyes peeled for birds, from wild swans to migrating loons, known in this part of the world as "great Northern divers." Do some beachcombing or even sunbathing. And stop somewhere for a cream tea. By then you'll deserve it.

GETTING THERE:

The nearest big town is Penzance (yes, as in Gilbert and Sullivan's "Pirates of ...") in Cornwall. From there, the Scillies are 20 minutes away by 32-passenger helicopter or about three hours on the sea-going passenger ferry called, as island natives are, the Scillonian.

I chose the chopper, which cost 72 pounds round-trip from Penzance (about $104). While the Scillonian was cheaper, I'd been warned that the boat can pitch so much that seasickness is inevitable, even on calm days. And on dark, windy days ... Well, at dinner on Scilly after one such day, I sat next to three generations of a British family who had arrived by boat that afternoon; several of them were still too queasy to eat.

Besides being quicker and far smoother than the boat, the helicopter offered spectacular views of the Cornish coast, including Land's End, the most westerly point in mainland Britain. On the way back to Penzance, the pilot swooped down and threw in a couple of loops around St. Michael's Mount, the landmark castle on a rocky island in Penzance's Mount Bay.

GETTING ORIENTED:

There are 55 islands in the Scillies, plus some rocks. You can tell them apart by this prim definition of "island" in the Isles of Scilly Standard Guidebook: "land surrounded by water at high tide, supporting a variety of vegetation at all times, and locally accepted as an island."

JUST SO WE ALL HAVE THAT STRAIGHT:

Scilly's six inhabited islands are St. Mary's, Tresco, Bryher, St. Martin's, St. Agnes and the Gugh, which is sort of borderline: It's connected to St. Agnes at low tide, and almost nobody lives there.

THINGS TO DO:

Don't think of bringing a car -- there's no room to drive it, and you can get anywhere you need to on foot, rental bicycle, taxi or boat.

Several small outfits give tours around St. Mary's. I chose Fred's Bus Tours, driven by the sarcastic Fred Elms. All tour buses leave from the center of Hugh Town, near Town Hall, where the main streets of the Strand and Church Street join.

Other islands are served by frequent launches; the ticket booth is on the quay that embraces Hugh Town harbor. A round-trip from Hugh Town to Tresco was about $6 in late October. It was slightly more to add a stop on Bryher.

Adult admission to Tresco's Abbey Gardens last fall was about $10, though you can wander the rest of the island for free. The gardens are open daily year-round, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. They have their own Web site: www.tresco.co.uk. The site also lists availability for Tresco's hotel and cottages.

The Isles of Scilly Museum, well-done and volunteer-staffed, is on Church Street in Hugh Town; open daily in summer, Wednesday afternoons in winter. Hours vary. Admission is about $1.50.

LODGING:

Scilly has a good range of places to stay, but most are on St. Mary's, the largest and most populous island, which has three dozen bed-and-breakfasts and several hotels, most of them clustered at Hugh Town.

The islands also have what the Brits call "self-catering" cottages -- places where you can do your own cooking. The island of Tresco is particularly good for these.

Whatever you choose, book well in advance. Rooms are in demand year-round, but the reasons vary with the seasons. The Scillies are popular destinations for Britons and other Europeans from spring through fall. In late fall and winter -- when you'd expect the least competition for rooms -- space can still be tight because many bed-and-breakfasts close so owners can do some remodeling or take a vacation.

You can contact lodgings directly via Web sites (keyword: Scilly) or write the island Tourist Center (see below).

The tourist office beside the train station in Penzance can help find lodgings in the Scillies. On only a few days' notice in mid-October, its staff located a bed-and-breakfast in Hugh Town, in the $35 to $50 price range I'd specified. (It was Nundeeps, a small, sunny house named for a Scilly reef.) I wouldn't have found it on my own without a lot of phone calls.

DINING:

Scilly waters are clear, and the fish and shellfish are excellent. High season offers the most dining choices, with most of them predictably on St. Mary's.

The highest-ranked restaurant is the Star Hotel in the restored fortress above Hugh Town, but I opted for restaurants in the main part of town. The two best meals of the visit were there, at the Atlantic Hotel and the Bell Rock Hotel. I also liked the Bishop and Wolf, a 300-year-old tavern/restaurant named for the two most famous Scilly lighthouses.

Hugh Town also has a good bakery, ideal for snacks or a light lunch; among its carryout offerings were traditional Cornish pasties, the meal-in-a-crust staple of nearby Cornwall.

INFORMATION:

As with the rest of the world, there are Web sites for the Isles of Scilly. Go to www.scillyonline.co.uk or www.isles-of-scilly.co.uk.

The Tourist Information Center Hugh Town posts a daily list of what's going on in the islands. Free maps, brochures and friendly help inside. It has its own Web site, www.simplyscilly.co.uk. You can write to the center at Town Hall, St. Mary's, Isles of Scilly, England, United Kingdom TR21 0JT.

The local public library, also in Town Hall, has Internet access.

For information on neighboring Cornwall, visit www.cornwall-online.co.uk/attractions/ or write to the Penzance Tourist Information Office, Station Road, Penzance, Cornwall, England, United Kingdom TR18 2NF.

-- Catherine Watson, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune