Sunday, June 25, 2017
June 6--Bath visit
Bath is a large enough city to have bus park and ride service and we took full advantage of it as it's so much easier than driving into the city and then attempting to find parking. Still raining, but lightly and winds had laid down. Found Bath Abbey, walked along the banks of the Avon River, toured the shops on Pulteney Bridge, found Guildhall Market. But the best part of the day was touring the Roman Baths, which date back to the 75 AD's!!
June 5--Manor Farm B&B
We found our next B&B which was outside Bath, but it wasn't easy. What we're finding is that these rural addresses don't give the GPS enough info to pinpoint the exact location. Plus it was still raining, windy, and we were tired from driving for 4+ hours. I was looking forward to staying at this B&B due to it's age--14th century!!!
June 5--Travel Day to Bath area
Our schedule called for going from Penzance to the Bath area via the north coast of Cornwall but the weather was awful. Heavy rain and high winds. Consequently we skipped Newquay, Port Issac. However we did make it to Tintagel Castle, the legendary home of King Arthur. The rain had let up some, but the wind was still strong. The castle is a ruins, and they'd closed it due to the high winds since they were afraid the remaining wall might collapse. Oh well, on to Bath.
June 4 St. Michaels Mount, Cornwall
Awakened to a dark and overcast day and thought we'd have to change plans, but as we ate another great breakfast the sky's began to clear. PS-English bacon is absolutely the best--double or triple the thickness of what we're used to and very little fat. Anyway, back to the facts. We headed out to St. Michaels Mount which is a castle and grounds on an island. We stopped at the bathrooms after parking and another man and I were leaning against a fence. I said to him, "I'll be here awhile because I can hear my wife talking to another woman." He said, "You'll be here longer than you think because she's talking to my wife." Sure enough they both walked out just chattering away. We had a good laugh with the Australian couple. At low tide one can walk a causeway from the mainland, but we arrived at high tide so it was a boat ride for us. Then a long walk up cobblestone paths to the castle which was magnificent. The only downer was that the gardens were closed on Sunday.
While in the castle we kept running into a couple from Potsdam, Germany. The man spoke English, but the wife didn't. After climbing down from the castle we stopped at a cafe on the island for a Cream Tea (2 scones, clotted cream and jam, and tea) which we ate outside at a picnic table. In a couple minutes we noticed the German couple come outside and were looking for a place to sit, so we invited them to join us. They were a few years older than us. We shared pictures of what we were interested in, and Betsy learned that the German lady was an artist also. We probably spent an hour with them, and had a delightful time. Early in the conversation I ask the man how he had learned English and he said that he grew up during the early occupation of Berlin in the American Sector and he learned English so he could ask the GI's for chewing gum or candy. When they were ready to leave we stood up to shake hands and I said to him, "I have something for you." I then reached into my pocket and put a piece of chew gum into his hand.
St. Michaels Mount is our first castle and it was a 10. At low tide there is a causeway for walking to the island, but we arrived at high tide so we rode to the island. The only disappointment was that the gardens at the base of the castle were closed on Sunday. What a stupid day to close the gardens!
While in the castle we kept running into a couple from Potsdam, Germany. The man spoke English, but the wife didn't. After climbing down from the castle we stopped at a cafe on the island for a Cream Tea (2 scones, clotted cream and jam, and tea) which we ate outside at a picnic table. In a couple minutes we noticed the German couple come outside and were looking for a place to sit, so we invited them to join us. They were a few years older than us. We shared pictures of what we were interested in, and Betsy learned that the German lady was an artist also. We probably spent an hour with them, and had a delightful time. Early in the conversation I ask the man how he had learned English and he said that he grew up during the early occupation of Berlin in the American Sector and he learned English so he could ask the GI's for chewing gum or candy. When they were ready to leave we stood up to shake hands and I said to him, "I have something for you." I then reached into my pocket and put a piece of chew gum into his hand.
St. Michaels Mount is our first castle and it was a 10. At low tide there is a causeway for walking to the island, but we arrived at high tide so we rode to the island. The only disappointment was that the gardens at the base of the castle were closed on Sunday. What a stupid day to close the gardens!
June 3 Newlyn-Mousehole-Penzance
Breakfast at 9 AM which consisted of eggs (any style), sausage or bacon, toast with tea or coffee. Also offered was another selection of salmon with eggs. Talked to Nicola, who is an absolute delight, for a bit then headed out for some sightseeing.
First stop was Newlyn which is on the ocean, and somewhat of an artist colony. The issue for me in these small towns is driving. Every ounce of concentration is devoted to simply staying on the opposite side of the road that I'm normally on, plus very narrow streets with cars parked on either side. I'm not yet able to drive through AND look for parking area's. But did finally find a spot. On the walk back to Newlyn we found a couple who had purchased a 1960's Viking travel trailer (they call them caravans over here) and made it into a mobile tea, coffee, milkshake shop. We talked with them for several minutes about their trailer, our trailer, and camping. Walked further into town and while Betsy browsed some galleries I found an antique store and wandered around the town a little bit. The cottages all had beautiful flowers around them.
Our next stop was going to be Mousehole which is pronounced mow (rhymes with cow)--zel. Mousehold is one of the oldest fishing villages in Cornwall and very tiny. While I was waiting for Betsy I ask a man if the road we were standing by was the one to Mousehold and he said it was but he also cautioned that the road to and the streets in the village were very narrow and suggested we take the bus for the 2 miles. Off we go to the bus stop and ask a man who was sitting there if this was the place to get the bus to Mousehole. He said it was and wondered where we were from. He had visited the Phoenix/Scottsdale area several years ago. He'd worked in London for 40 years, retired, and moved to Newlyn 6 years ago. He seemed to know everyone in town. We rode with him to Mousehole and after seeing the tiny streets I'm sure the 6 1/2 pounds we'd paid for the bus ride to and back were well spent. We wandered through the town, talked to a man painting his boat (didn't know that each coastal village had their own boat colors), went through more galleries, had lunch (crabmeat sandwiches, did some tourist shopping but the find of the day was something called a Plague
Stone which is a stone about 2x2 and maybe 6 inches thick with a round 6 or 8 inch wide shallow hole carved into it. When a plague would break out in a village no one could leave for fear of infecting others, so the residents would pour vinegar into the stones hole (they thought vinegar would disinfect the coins) and then put coins in the vinegar so that people from the un-infected village down the road would take the money and buy the villagers of the infected village food. This particular stone was found when they were remodeling a house there and Mousehole did have a plague outbreak back in the mid 1500's.
We followed the coast path back to our parking space but realized that Penzance was within walking distance so rather than find a new parking spot we walked into Penzance. After wandering about a bit we found the "old" part of the town and decided we'd better eat something. We opted for a pub (our first visit to one) called The Turks Head which is the oldest pub in town. This pub is thought to date back to 1233 (that's right 1233!!!!), when during the crusades, the Turks invaded Penzance from Jerusalem.
Also, today we met a lady walking a Cairn Terrier named Fudge. We're pretty sure Fudge is Tippers English cousin. We also ran across a lawn bowling center and that was interesting. Betsy was talking to an artist in her gallery and the artist said that she's been inspired by Jane Davies, an American artist. Betsy has taken classes by Jane so they had a lot to talk about.
A very nice day.
First stop was Newlyn which is on the ocean, and somewhat of an artist colony. The issue for me in these small towns is driving. Every ounce of concentration is devoted to simply staying on the opposite side of the road that I'm normally on, plus very narrow streets with cars parked on either side. I'm not yet able to drive through AND look for parking area's. But did finally find a spot. On the walk back to Newlyn we found a couple who had purchased a 1960's Viking travel trailer (they call them caravans over here) and made it into a mobile tea, coffee, milkshake shop. We talked with them for several minutes about their trailer, our trailer, and camping. Walked further into town and while Betsy browsed some galleries I found an antique store and wandered around the town a little bit. The cottages all had beautiful flowers around them.
Our next stop was going to be Mousehole which is pronounced mow (rhymes with cow)--zel. Mousehold is one of the oldest fishing villages in Cornwall and very tiny. While I was waiting for Betsy I ask a man if the road we were standing by was the one to Mousehold and he said it was but he also cautioned that the road to and the streets in the village were very narrow and suggested we take the bus for the 2 miles. Off we go to the bus stop and ask a man who was sitting there if this was the place to get the bus to Mousehole. He said it was and wondered where we were from. He had visited the Phoenix/Scottsdale area several years ago. He'd worked in London for 40 years, retired, and moved to Newlyn 6 years ago. He seemed to know everyone in town. We rode with him to Mousehole and after seeing the tiny streets I'm sure the 6 1/2 pounds we'd paid for the bus ride to and back were well spent. We wandered through the town, talked to a man painting his boat (didn't know that each coastal village had their own boat colors), went through more galleries, had lunch (crabmeat sandwiches, did some tourist shopping but the find of the day was something called a Plague
Stone which is a stone about 2x2 and maybe 6 inches thick with a round 6 or 8 inch wide shallow hole carved into it. When a plague would break out in a village no one could leave for fear of infecting others, so the residents would pour vinegar into the stones hole (they thought vinegar would disinfect the coins) and then put coins in the vinegar so that people from the un-infected village down the road would take the money and buy the villagers of the infected village food. This particular stone was found when they were remodeling a house there and Mousehole did have a plague outbreak back in the mid 1500's.
We followed the coast path back to our parking space but realized that Penzance was within walking distance so rather than find a new parking spot we walked into Penzance. After wandering about a bit we found the "old" part of the town and decided we'd better eat something. We opted for a pub (our first visit to one) called The Turks Head which is the oldest pub in town. This pub is thought to date back to 1233 (that's right 1233!!!!), when during the crusades, the Turks invaded Penzance from Jerusalem.
Also, today we met a lady walking a Cairn Terrier named Fudge. We're pretty sure Fudge is Tippers English cousin. We also ran across a lawn bowling center and that was interesting. Betsy was talking to an artist in her gallery and the artist said that she's been inspired by Jane Davies, an American artist. Betsy has taken classes by Jane so they had a lot to talk about.
A very nice day.
June 2 Reading to Trelew Farm (outside Penzance)
Woke up feeling fairly refreshed and ready to face the day. First thing on the agenda was to pick up the rental car. Matt, the Enterprise rep picked us up at the hotel with our car and we headed back to their office to do the paperwork. They had given us decent directions to get out of town but somehow between driving on the left side of the road and messing up a couple of roundabout adventures we ended up going the wrong direction. After wasting about and hour we finally got pointed in the right direction. Due to the half term school holiday the roads were absolutely packed. And the next thing we discovered was that you would be driving along on a motorway (interstate in the US) and then you'd have to go through a roundabout. We got through them all without to much trouble. Mostly due to following the GPS instructions. Of course we hit Exeter at rush hour but I was pretty much happy to slow down. We drove A30 most of the way (an M road is almost like our Interstate highways except sometimes there are no medians--A roads would be like our state highways and B roads are much smaller, barely wide enough for two cars with hedge rows on either side), but then had to use a B road to get to the B&B. We made it, but Betsy may never be the same again. She kept yelling something about being to close to the curb or hedgerow. I knew she had just about had enough when she started saying "Mother Mary, full of grace. . . .!
We found our B&B Trelew Farm which is owned by the Sampson family and is a dairy farm. Beautiful old stone house and barns.
We found our B&B Trelew Farm which is owned by the Sampson family and is a dairy farm. Beautiful old stone house and barns.
May 31 & June 1, 2017 Phoenix to London & Reading
Flight left on time and all was well until 1 hour after eating the in-flight meal of chicken curry. I really hate being sick and the thought of throwing up in an airplane with over 300 passengers made the situation even worse. Thankfully Betsy had some Tums which seemed to do the trick. Flight was about 9 hours which was long, but the 747 is big enough that you could stand up and stretch and actually walk a bit. We didn't really sleep. It was more of a doze.
A young woman sat next to me and she was a member of the Great Britain Para-Olympic Swim Team. She and eight of her teammates had been high altitude training in Flagstaff for the past 3 weeks. They had been to the S Rim of the Grand Canyon and loved it.
Arrived Reading, checked into the hotel and Betsy took a brief nap. We then walked around town and found the Town Hall Museum, a statue of Queen Victoria, a park where some sort of mini food festival was going on, an old graveyard, and a pedestrian shopping street. Since our stomachs had not recovered from the chicken curry we elected to eat chicken noodle soup at a Chinese eatery. We headed back to the hotel and Betsy went to bed immediately. I tried to read a little but kept waking up when the book would fall on my chest. Gave up and went to bed at 8:30.
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