By the Sea // Yoga Photo Surf Retreat in St. Ives

This May it was time for my first proper vacation of the year. But if you think, I was just marinating in the sun, reading, sleeping, you don’t know me well 🙂 I took a few days off and travelled with my dear friend Biddy and a group of brilliant women to St. Ives in Cornwall for a yoga, photography and surf retreat.

Warning: Scrolling through the next dozens of pictures might cause feelings of wanderlust, immediately!

Travel slow

I had no idea how beautiful Cornwall REALLY was. All I remembered are the very cheesy romantic TV adaptations of Rosamunde Pilcher novels, all set along the pitoresque coast of this South-West part of England.

So when we did get on the train from London Paddington to St. Ives, I was merely busy staring out the window for a good amount of the five hour travel. No time to be bored, aweing over green hills, river beds, sheep and cows everywhere and finally … the Sea.

Oh Muse, my muse …

And then it hit me, right away, on the first evening. I was totally hooked and in love with this place <3 And the retreat we had come for hadn’t even started 😀

Watching the sun set over Porthmeor Beach, with the words of Stephen Fry in my head:

„As Gaia predicted, Hemera and Aether were tired after twelve hours of playing and slowly Day and Light slipped down westwards into the sea. At the same time, Nyx slipped off her dark veil and she and Erebus threw over the world like a shimmering black tablecloth.“

Yoga and Co. By the Sea

What we had come for was not only the beautiful landscape of Cornwall, but the prospect of four full days of yoga, surfing and photography with the amazing women of By the Sea St. Ives: yoga teachers Julia Rose and Jo Riley have created a unique experience in a cozy and peaceful surrounding.

We would wander from yoga session to photography classes with the amazing Lara Platman, dipping our toes into the sea for our first surf lessons, letting our spines melt away during a massage. Always, always surrounded by the calming soundtrack of the waves rolling into the bay.

Even though the days were filled, it never felt like being stressed. Everything just felt right. We would take walks by ourselves, indulging in Cornish ice-cream, dozing before dinner and just following the natural rhythm of our body.

Back to Basics

What I liked most about the whole weekend is that it took me back to the basics, be it taking pictures without a camera 😀 (Thank you, Lara, for changing my seeing all over again!), finding into a yoga pose naturally as if for the first time or trying to balance on a surf board. We all go through our days on auto-pilot way too often. But when we give ourselves the vital (!) luxury of taking a pause and re-framing what we are looking at, we can eventually slow down and connect again to what really matters to us.

Thank You

Thank you to everyone for making this an indeed once-in-a-lifetime experience <3

Julia Rose // Yoga
Jo Riley // Yoga
Lara Platman // Photography
St. Ives Surf School
Portmeor Beach Cafe
The Digey Food Room
Cornish Hollistic Therapies // Massage
… and last but never the least: All the beautiful, strong, funny and amazing women I have met in St. Ives! Thank you for the laughter, the conversations, the hugs and the love!

I will leave you now to the beauty of St. Ives, enjoy.