Today was mainly spent exploring the Eden Project in Cornwall:

It opened in 2001 and we last visited sometime after that – possibly in the first year and certainly within the first 2-3 years it was operating. It was before I started blogging and even before I had established my system for filing away digital photos so I can’t pin a definite date on it. A year or two back, we looked at revisiting but the prices were too high – £40 per adult is too much for a one day visit and we’re too far away to take advantage of the offer to re-use that ticket throughout the following year. However, this year the Eden Project became an RHS partner garden for certain months of the year and so we were able to use our membership of that to get in for free.

In that intervening quarter of a century, the plants have become much better established and there are some additional facilities, including a permanent education centre called The Core. I think £40 is too steep as a one-off ticket (joint annual membership of the RHS is about the price of two tickets and would get you into multiple other gardens plus all the other benefits) although I think it could be worthwhile if you lived close enough to drastically reduce the price per visit.

It does have some gorgeous plants. I particularly enjoyed the “Mediterranean Biome” and highlights included the bourgainvillea (pictured above) and the bed showing off the wonderful foliage of a wide range of cabbages, kales and chards.