The walk to Pendennis wasn't too onerous, although the sidewalk crapped out early on and it was back to walking against traffic on tarmac, but other than a climb uphill there wasn't any real challenge. After you cross over the (dry) moat and drawbridge and pay to enter, you walk into a semi-enclosed grassy area with buildings on one end (second photo) and the castle itself on the far end of the peninsula (top photo). Pendennis was really interesting because it gave me the perspective of what it must be like to have military fortifications that not only can stand for centuries, but have. If I remember my reading correctly it was used as a miliatry base from the time of Henry VIII until something like the 1950s. One room was used by Charles II, and the place was available to help deal with the Luftwaffe during WWII. That's versatility, and that's sound construction.

Walking around the castle was a bit spooky: They have constant reenactments going on with statues at the ready by windows and suchlike, plus audio, so you feel like there's actually a battle going on with cannonfire and explosions. 

The third photo shows off the main room; the fourth a shot of the latrine. (Not currently in use, thankfully.) And then I'm a sucker for windows (fifth photo), though it's hard not to wonder just how cold it must have been in the castle if the windows back in the day weren't closed off on one end and were this wide. This reminded me of an open-ended coal-fire oven, frankly.

Bottom: A cannon from one of the reenactments. Looks like it's about to take out the little schooner in the window, doesn't it?