Cornwall

Cornwall is an English county in the far southwest corner of the country. For some reason involving the "jet stream" that we don't understand, it is the warmest part of the country, and the coast has some nice beaches. Thanks to the August Bank Holiday, we had a 3 day weekend, so we'd planned for several months to spend it sitting on the beach and taking in some of the sites.

Sadly, this turned out to be probably the worst possible weekend for us to go. They say that the August Bank Holiday weekend is the official end to summer. In London, it went out with a bang - giving the city dwellers a weekend of sun and warmth. In Cornwall, we were not so lucky. The warmest it ever got was around 65, and the sun barely ever popped through the clouds. We didn't really have any rain, which was good, and we were able to still make the most of the trip by seeing the sites, but it was far from Jenna's dream beach vacation.

Saturday, August 29th

On the one year anniversary of our arrival in the UK (see an upcoming post), we set off for Cornwall. We took a train from our place to Exeter, which is just to the east of where we were staying, and we picked up a car there. Since it is a little far, we thought it would be better to split up our time on the road, as the train is much more relaxing, and this turned out to be a good decision. Also, not sure if we've mentioned this before, but gas is outrageous over here. Remember when everyone was up in arms about gas nearing $4/gallon in the States a while back? We paid $6.50/gallon this weekend. No wonder the Hummer never really caught on here!!

The weather on Saturday was supposed to be warmer and sunnier than any other day, so we went straight to our hotel in Newquay, which was close to the beach, dropped off our bags, and headed out. We were not very lucky here. The beach was nice enough, and they were actually having a big beach rugby tournament which was interesting to see, but the weather just refused to cooperate. We spent about 2 hours on the beach, and the whole time it was windy and mostly cold, and the the sun never really made an appearance for more than a few minutes at a time.

We left the beach a little depressed and walked around the town. Newquay is known as a bit of a party town, and is big with the surfers (something that we didn't really know when we booked out hotel - no wander it was so cheap). The main part of town was full of a few restaurants and a ton of surf shops, and really wasn't that impressive to us. The best part - the Mexican Cantina where the Traditional Mexican Sampler was made up of BBQ ribs, chicken wings, and potato skins. Needless to say we passed.

In the evening we headed off to Tintagel Castle, in a town a few miles from Newquay. This was really cool. This is supposedly the site of King Arthur's castle. There is no written record of Arthur, but based on the strong oral history, they think that he probably did exist in some form. Since most of the oral history is from this region, and it is in an area known as Camelford (similar to Camelot), they think this must have been where he reigned.

The castle that sits on the site is completely ruined, and even they are not the ruins from Arthur's day. Another castle was built up in the 1200's several hundred years after Arthur, but there are remains of the foundations of some houses, a chapel, and a few other things that date from his time. It was interesting to walk around the area, see the ruins of the newer castle and the older homes, and just think of the round table (which probably didn't really exist, but we can dream!).

Afterward it was getting pretty late, so we headed back to Newquay for a delicious Indian dinner before calling it a night.

Sunday, August 30th

Sunday was our day to see the sites of Cornwall. Our first stop was Penzance (as in "the pirates of"). This town is supposed to have some great views over the sea. Unfortunately, the fog was so thick that we couldn't see more than a few hundred feet. We wandered around the town, found an amazing bookshop, and were very disappointed with the Sprinkles Cupcake Shop (nothing like the one in Dallas).

We moved on to the town of Porthcurno, which has become a tourist destination on account of its Minack theatre. A local woman loved theatre and basically sunk her life into building this place. They've built an open air theatre, complete with stage and stadium seating, directly into the the rocks overlooking the cliffs. The stage is very simple, and for most shows the only set is the waves crashing in the background. Again, it was very unfortunate that it was so foggy in the morning. The view we had was pretty good, but I'm sure it would have been amazing if the sky were clear.

Next we moved on the the biggest tourist trap in England - Land's End. This is the furthest west that you can go in England, and it is known as the last/first thing that sailors saw as they left for/returned from the New World. They have turned the place into a gaudy trap filled with every shop imaginable that can claim that it is the first and last (including the First and Last Royal Mail post office box, with a big sign saying it was not in use). You can even pay $20 to get your picture with a sign post showing the mileage to your home (if memory serves, about 4400 miles to Dallas). There are supposed to be some nice views from the point, looking out to sea over some cliffs, that make this madhouse worth while. Of course with the fog, we could hear the waves crashing but couldn't see a thing, and spent 5 very disappointed minutes here before we left.

Our last stop of the day was St Ives. This is another big-time beach town, and is known as an artist colony. There were a ton of small galleries lining the streets, and we had a nice walk through town down to the beach, peeking in at the different art work - mostly beach themed. As we got into town, we were lucky as the fog finally cleared and the sun started to peek through. We sat on the boardwalk for quite a while and watched all the people playing on the beach as the tide went out. After hanging out for a while, we had one of the area's famous cream teas - a pot of tea and 2 scones with clotted cream and jam. They were delicious.

After spending a few more minutes watching the people on the beach, we took off back to Newquay. It was still fairly early, and after the scones we weren't hungry for dinner, so we decided to waste the evening at the cinema. Jenna had read the book The Time Traveller's Wife, and it had just come out over here and she really wanted to see it. Turns out that movies in Cornwall are a lot cheaper than London, which was a nice surprise. The movie wasn't bad either, but based on the reaction of everyone in the theater, reading the book first (or having your wife summarize it) probably would have helped.

Monday, August 31st

Devon is a county just east of Cornwall, and home to Dartmoor, a national park and outdoorsy "moor" area, and where we planned to spend out last day on a scenic multi-stop drive. A moor is a type of landscape that is common in parts of England and Ireland, but is hard to describe. Just look at the pictures for an idea.

There isn't a ton to say about this. We walked around a few little towns, which was nice (but not quite as quaint as the Cotswolds). In the afternoon we did enjoy another cream tea and good conversation with the owner of the small tea room. We also spent a lot of time stopping along the roads to take in the scenery, climb some rock formations, and pet the wild horses. They aren't technically wild - they are owned by somebody - but there are no fences to keep them in, and so you'll see them just roaming by the side of the road. We've seen this in other parts of the country with sheep, but they aren't nearly as interesting. Plus, you can tell that these horses have been well taken care of by other tourists. At one point we parked the car and as soon as they saw us they came up looking for food!! A little weird, but they did just let you come up and pet them, which Jenna loved (and I kinda liked as well).

Yes, that horse did eat her button.  And yes, this is the same horse scratching its rear-end on somebody's car.

We finished the drive a little earlier than expected, so we had some extra time and decided to head back to Exeter (where we would later catch the train home) to see some sites there. They have a big cathedral that is supposed to be nice. Of course, we arrived 10 minutes after they closed up. They were supposed to have a nightly Evensong service that we thought we could attend, but apparently that got cancelled due to the bank holiday. The town looked really nice, but had definitely taken the day off. The only things that were open were a few pubs and coffee shops (and even most of those were closed). We wandered around for a while, grabbed dinner at the only acceptable place that was open - Subway - and hopped on the train back to London.