Wet 'n Wild

No, this is not a blog posting about spring break in Cancun, merely a synopsis of our time in the UK. To be fair, while we have had some rain during our time in England's southwest, it hasn't been nearly as wet as the weather forecasts led us to believe it would be. Wild? Yes, in two ways.

First, wild is the only way to describe some of our driving experiences on the oft-times very narrow roads in Devon and Cornwall. The two-lane roads are not particularly wide in many cases, but the one-lane roads--hemmed in by hedges and/or rocky walls--have been truly cringe-worthy at times. There's a whole version of road etiquette associated with who should be backing up when two cars meet on a one-lane road. Speed limits may give one permission to go 60 miles an hour, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea. Add the factor of an American (Lon) driving a stick shift from a completely different side of the car than he is used to, and a 30-minute drive can feel like an hour or two. It's left us rather exhausted some days.

A relatively wide one-lane road on our wet drive to Falmouth in Cornwall.
I probably had my eyes shut on the really skinny lanes

Second, we made an attempt to get away from towns and villages and managed to have some wonderful walks in the "wild" great outdoors. 

While we can't help bumping into the "historic" in a place as old as England, we feel as though we're on "vacation" at the moment. I've been content to simply enjoy the atmosphere and not obsess about retaining too much information about where we've been and what we've seen. It was great to see my friend Kitty and her husband Stan in Bath, and the sightseeing they treated us to was incidental to the "catching up" we were able to do. That said, we've seen our share of the following over the past 9 days:

Churches. As in France, one can't move without encountering a historic church. We saw many in the past few days, including:

St. Mary's Church, Totnes (Devon), 15th C

Cathedral of Truro (Cornwall). Quite new in the scheme of
things, it was constructed in the late 1800's

Here we are with Kitty and Stan at the Wells Cathedral. Consecrated
in 1239, in size it falls in the mid-range of English cathedrals

Castles. We love castles--as does the English Heritage group, which is the custodian of over 400 historic monuments, buildings, and sites. On our first afternoon in Cornwall we stopped by Tintagel, in legend said to be the place where King Arthur was conceived. In the 12th century the legend inspired Richard, Earl of Cornwall, to build his castle there. The ruins of that castle along the western coast of England feel a bit "touristy", but it was still fun to wander the site.

Modern-day Tintagel village in the background (upper left), with the ruins of the 12th century castle
spread over the mainland and a headland connected to the mainland by a newly built bridge.

St. Materiana's Church, 11th or 12th century

View from the headland to the north

The ruins of an early medieval settlement on the headland

One of King Henry VIII's finest coastal fortresses, which defended Cornwall against foreign invasion from Tudor times to the Second World War, was located in Falmouth (our base in Cornwall).

Pendennis Castle, built around 1540, and much still original from
that period. More a defensive fortification than what might typically be thought
of as a "castle", it guarded the entrance to Falmouth harbor

The entrance to Falmouth harbor as seen from Pendennis Castle

Our base in Devon, Totnes, had its own castle remains, this a castle first built just after the Norman invasion of 1066. Its builder was one of William the Conqueror's commanders in the Norman campaign. The original 11th century castle was an earthwork and timber construction. Although the earthworks still survive, the current stone wall at the top is from the early 13th century and an extensive reconstruction about 100 years later. 

Totnes Castle

The view over Totnes from the castle

Towns. Towns and villages in Cornwall and Devon can be rather overrun with tourists, but they're hard to avoid (nor would one want to). They have some fun things to see, and they generally have a great collection of restaurants.

Our base in Cornwall was the coastal town of Falmouth. The town is relatively "young" for this region, having only been established in the early 1600's. Falmouth is a seafaring town. It has the 3rd largest natural harbor in the world. 

Downtown Falmouth, with pennants left over from a nautical
event the week before we arrived

Panorama of Falmouth harbor

On our drive to Falmouth, we stopped briefly in the village of Port Isaac. It's a small village that gained fame thanks to being the shooting location for a British television show called "Doc Martin" (now going off the air after 18 seasons.)

The tide's out in Port Isaac harbor, and the boats are sitting on
the mud. The village had some nice old Tudor-era buildings,
but we didn't stay long

Our base in Devon was the town of Totnes, rather wealthy in the Middle Ages, but these days not much known by those outside of England. On our drive between Cornwall and Devon we stopped for lunch in the seaside town of Dartmouth. Both towns--Dartmouth and Totnes--still have a Tudor-era "vibe" to them due to the relatively large number of "listed" buildings from that era in each town. 

The Cherub Inn, a pub, is the oldest building in 
Dartmouth, and dates to the 1300's

Dartmouth Harbor

Dartmouth Inner Harbor at low tide 

A cat owner in Totnes has created steps for their pet to
exit the house

The Dart River is tidal from Dartmouth to Totnes

An Elizabethan market is held in Totnes on Tuesdays during summer
and early fall

The Guildhall is built on the foundations of a 1000-year-old
priory, and has been the seat of Totnes city functions since the 1500's

Walks. We had two "days out" walking that we really enjoyed. The first was along a stretch of the Cornish South West Coast Path and the second was in Dartmoor National Park in Devon.

Lon on the South West Coast Path

A panoramic coastal view from Guddens Point

Praa Beach. A surfing competition was being held the Saturday of our walk

We could see St. Michael's Mount on its tidal island in Mount's Bay. The causeway to the island is 
under water at high tide. We wanted to visit, but it was closed on Saturday (the only day we
had available), so we had to satisfy ourselves with the view of it from Guddens Point

The ruins of Wheal Prosper tin mine. Cornwall has quite a history
of mining, but this particular mine only functioned for about
six years in the 1860's

The moors of Dartmoor National Park were the inspiration for Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes tale "Hound of the Baskervilles." Dartmoor is a vast moorland in the county of Devon, dotted with tors (granite rock formations), Bronze Age stone circles, and the remnants of abandoned medieval villages. I was expecting a swamp-like environment, but what we saw in the area we were in was nothing like that. What is interesting is that the roads leading into the park have cattle grates, because the local farmers are allowed to graze their livestock on the moors. 

Watch out for the livestock! As if driving the narrow roads wasn't difficult enough, it is necessary to exercise care for the animals near/on the roads:

Cows 

Ponies

Sheep

The weather cooperated and we had a great time walking over some iconic landscapes.

One of the granite outcroppings at Haytor

A second outcropping at Haytor. We climbed this one (if you can see
two little specks on top of the rock, those are people). It looks pretty 
impressive from this side, but before anyone gets too amazed that
we scaled something of this magnitude, consider that it's easier to 
access from its other side

The "back" side of the rock seen in the last photo. Not so far from the ground, and . . . 

. . . the rock face had some steps carved into it and some metal
bars for hand holds, so . . . 

. . . the climb was manageable for me as well

It was a great view from the top

Besides just walking in the moorland, we also stopped to see the
prehistoric settlement of Grimspound. The stone circles are remnants of
round houses in a Late Bronze Age (1450-700 B.C.) settlement

Lunch after walking was in the Tavistock Inn in Poundsgate, 
the oldest section of which dates back to the 1300's

Today was rainy most of the day, so we stuck close to Totnes. We leave Devon tomorrow and will spend the night in London before catching the Eurostar to Paris on Thursday. The death of Queen Elizabeth II on September 8 has, of course, been much in the news here. We signed a Book of Condolence at the church in Falmouth, and such books seem to be in all churches and other public places as well. Because of her death, the railway strike originally planned for Thursday has been cancelled, but we will be curious to see what London is like when we arrive, because her body is being moved to Westminster Hall tomorrow. Huge numbers of mourners are expected to line up to see the Queen lying in state. Our departure train station is a few miles from Westminster, so we don't expect to be directly affected, but we'll decide when we get there whether we want to get closer to Westminster just to get a sense of the atmosphere in the city.

A memorial to the Queen at the church 
in Dartmouth