Penzance is the most westerly of the three great harbour towns of West Cornwall. It is less of a honeypot than St Ives and Falmouth, but it is at least as rewarding.
For a start it gives you more elbow-room – it’s more spaciously laid out and Market Jew Street, with its raised pavements, is one of the finest main thoroughfares in the country, leading grandly uphill towards a huge dome that turns out to be a bank – appropriately for Penzance’s history is all about business and the trading of tin. There’s an Assay House down near the waterfront. 
The town is laid out around Mount’s Bay, which means St Michael’s Mount is always in the view. A good introduction is to walk from the station (main line terminus) along past the harbour, conveniently nearby, then up the ancient Abbey Steps behind the inner harbour, and work your way through clusters of Georgian houses to Chapel Street, then up to see the intriguing facade of the Egyptian House, or down to the art-deco Jubilee Pool lido.
Its neighbour Newlyn also has a harbour, mainly devoted to industrial fishing, but with a small inner harbour where yachts can lie, and dry. It was from here that Pete Goss set sail for Australia in the Spirit of Mystery.
To the east is the pretty village of Marazion (for which Market Jew is the English translation), worth exploring in its own right, but often ignored in the rush to cross the half-tide causeway to St Michel’s Mount. The Mount also has its own small harbour, an attractive destination for yachts.
Top: Penzance; middle: Marazion and St Michael’s Mount; bottom: Newlyn Harbour