The EMPEROR’S ISLE
Land’s End might sound definitive, but the last piece of England before America is really 28 miles beyond Cornwall’s western tip. The Isles of Scilly, an enchanting archipelago of rocky islands (of which five are inhabited) are a tempting vision from the mainland: “an eternal stone armada of over a hundred ships, aloofly anchored off England”, as author John Fowles put it. “Mute, enticing, forever just out of reach.”
Reaching the Scillies is not so hard these days. Apart from regular ferries, 16-seater twin-engine planes make the journey an adventure in itself. As the mainland recedes, the Scillies shimmer into view like an exotic atoll: a constellation of islets set in deep azure sea, whose turquoise shallows are lined by white arcs of sand. For even greater thrills, this spring a
