Exploring Looe and Polperro

South East Cornwall is perhaps the least spoilt of all the county, with pretty towns and villages still surviving as working ports all along the coast. Looe and Polperro are typical Cornish harbours, and are very popular with visitors.

Cross the River Tamar from Devon and you enter the county of Cornwall. The county is famous for its heavy industries of tin and china clay mining, but the south-east of the county always focused on a much older trade: fishing. Looe and Polperro remain excellent examples of the Cornish fishing town.

The town now known as Looe was, for most of its history, two separate towns of East Looe and West Looe, separated by the estuary. East Looe is the larger of the two, and is home to the fish quay as well as most of the town's shops and houses.

The harbour was the source of the town's wealth for centuries. Fishing has been the longest lasting trade, but Looe once exported copper and stone from mines and quarries to the north, and there used to be a canal to transport goods to the port. This didn't last long after the railway arrived.

Trade declined in the 20th century, leaving only the trawlers bringing fish and seafood to the market on the harbour. There may well be fish on sale when you visit, but most will have been sold almost as soon as it was landed in the early morning because Looe is still one of the most important fishing ports in the county and its fish is very popular.

Fishing is not the only sea-bound activity popular in Looe. The town's sailing club is well known for its races and international sailing competitions take place regularly. Indeed, a unique sailing boat, the Redwing, was designed specially for racing in Looe Bay. All this activity on the water can be dangerous and next to the pier are two lifeboat stations, one old and one new, where the charity Royal National Lifeboat Institution houses rescue boats funded entirely by public donation.

The 'banjo' pier at the end of the harbour separates the estuary from East Looe beach, a lovely stretch of sand that draws summer visitors to the water. At the far end, through a gap in the rocks, is the Second Beach which has plenty of rock pools to explore at low tide.

Away from the harbour, Looe has plenty of shops and cafés, as well as restaurants where you can try the local seafood. There's a museum in the Old Guildhall which will tell you more about the town's history – but you can see the old pillory (a board with holes for hands and heads which was used to punish criminals) at the end of the roof outside the museum.

Looe is very popular with tourists, and not just in summer. In the winter the town is famed for its Christmas lights and for its New Year celebrations, with the town ranked as one of the best places in Britain to be at midnight.

Along the coast from Looe is Polperro, another town famous for fishing. However, while Looe has a wide estuary, Polperro is crammed into a narrow, steep valley, with colourful fishermen's houses seeming to tumble right down to the tiny harbour.

The first thing to note about Polperro is the narrowness of its streets, which were built for the horse and handcart rather than the motor car. The maze of streets offers some surprising secrets: a house decorated with shells, bridges that claim to date from the times of the Saxons and Romans, and a model village. As well as the story of the town's daytime fishing trade, the Heritage Museum of Fishing and Smuggling (£1.75) will tell you about the night-time, illegal trade in brandy and tobacco that used to provide welcome income when times were hard for the fishermen. The coves around Polperro were ideal landing places for illegal goods, and the village's maze of cellars good hiding places.

We don't know about the smuggling, but fishing is still carried out from Polperro, although the tiny fishermen's cottages are frequently owned by very wealthy people as holiday homes – a one-bedroom house will cost you an extraordinary £220,000 today. The men who built these practical houses with a store room at ground level and tiny house above would have been astonished at the prices, and that almost an entire village could become too expensive for the kind of people who built it. Significant wealth may come in handy in some rather smart restaurants, but there are plenty of cafés where you can get a reasonable snack. Perhaps you might like to try a traditional Cornish pasty - a meat pie with a thick crust.

The pretty village is, not surprisingly, popular with artists and there are plenty of galleries, as well as an exhibition in the village hall at the top of the hill. There are plenty of craft shops too, and the town's Fishermen's Choir is well-known for its evening concerts on the quay.

You can explore further by taking a cruise from the harbour, including trips to Looe, or walk along the coast path (see below).

So why not discover Looe and Polperro for yourself? There is plenty to explore, and the towns offer a real insight into Cornwall's history and heritage.