Sunday, Sept 22 To the coast we will go!!

Sunday, September 22, 2013  To the coast we will go!!

We left early this morning – 9:55!  We tried for 9:30 but it took some time to organize the car.  The largest car we could rent was a seven seater and it seats seven people, tightly.  Luggage, not so much.  We all packed for our 2 night visit to Penzance in bags and brought as little as we could to save room, but it still took time to squeeze everything in but finally we were ready to go.  We headed out of Bourton on the Water on the same road we’ve used every day so far, but we took some different turns and ended up on the motorway – the BIG roads.  We knew the trip would take found hours even using the big roads so we settle in for a long ride.  Y’know how you have to entertain children on a long trip by singing songs and so forth??  Well, we recited all the nursery rhymes we ever knew and Sue even had to look one up on her phone in order to get all the words but we had fun doing it.  Then we started in on hymns and telling stories of other trips.  We did a pretty good job of entertaining ourselves – we were not often quiet, that’s for sure.

When we drive the motorways, we could get off the roads and head into a town for gas, snacks, and restrooms but they have Service Exits where these places are located but you are still connected to the motorways with no city traffic or anything.  We stopped twice at these places to refuel and stretch our legs.  There are even places like KFC at some of these places.

We decided that perhaps instead of heading straight back to the Cotswolds on Tuesday that perhaps we should go to Wales on the way back home since this would save us having to drive some of the same roads on another day when heading to Wales.  We will consider this as time continues and then make our final decision on Tuesday.  

We decided not to head straight to Penzance but to head to Tintagel on the way.  We turned toward the coast and carefully followed the directions of Myrtle, our GPS.  Myrtle is just wonderful – she has not led us astray yet though we felt sure she did for a while today.  We drove into Tintagel (Tin – ta – gel) on a one lane road that was very narrow even for a one lane road.  

 We drove through down to the Camelot Hotel which is right on the mountain side at the coast – the scenery was amazing.  There are hillside fields everywhere and the fields are separated by stone walls so the hillside looks kind of like a mosaic.  There are many little while dots (sheep) and houses that look small but that’s only because they are so far away from us. 

 There are fields of cows but sheep are much more common.  (Actually in all the villages and cities we’ve been in, we’ve not yet seen yard shops and we thought they’d be everywhere.)
We thought we were surely lost but we arrived on High Street just like we should have.

We turned around and drove back into town and parked in a car lot.  After asking a coach driver, we knew where to catch the ‘shuttle’ to go to King Authur’s Castle.  However, we decided to have lunch first.  

 The Cornishman’s Inn looked like a nice place so we went in to discover lots of people having Sunday dinner among the children who were obviously quite happily running and playing, and pool tables, and television sets with a soccer game in progress.  We wanted to all have Cornish Pasty but Paula ordered first and got the last one they had available.  The rest of us poor hungry people had to do without.  Not really, just trying to make Paula feel guilty, but I know that won’t work.  

 Actually, we had a wonderful lunch of roast beef, hamburgers, ham sandwiches and one Cornish Pasty.  It was a very nice meal and we were all quite full when we left. 

 We walked to the shuttle pickup place and discovered a rather worn Landrover driven by a young, colorful talking young man who drove most of us down the steep road to the ruins on the coast.  Two of us walked and saw the ruins from a different perspective.  The ruins went up and down  the coast mountain side – maybe a large hillside – and they were very interesting.  We did see Merlin’s Cave right on the sand.  It was all beautiful. Most of us watched a seven minute movie telling all about how the legend of King Authur developed over the centuries and how it became tied to the ruins at Tintagel. 

 It is a beautiful place and perhaps a little mystical, in my opinion.  

 We helped out the British economy quite a bit in the gift shop and then almost all of us rode the shuttle back to the top to roam around the gift shops there.  

After a while, we squeezed back in the car and headed to Penzance.  We decided that either Myrtle has a real sense of humor or a real wide mean streak because she took us out of the town of Tintagel on the same type room that she took us in on.  It was a narrow one lane road but it was beautiful.  On the right hand side we had glimpses of the coast and beautiful hillside fields again.  (I have not mentioned the hedges but they border the smaller roads, such as the one we were on, and they block the scenery.  They are about 6 feet tall generally and very tightly packed so you have to look quickly when you pass a small gate or gap in the hedge.)  We did stop in the middle of the road and take photos when we could but we had to move in order to not block traffic but even the photos can that we could take can not possible do justice to the real view. 

 It is truly beautiful here in Cornwall.  We did meet cars in the opposing lane (!) several times and when both cars pulled off the road as far as we could, we both managed to get by with millimeters to spare.  It was fun.  

We finally got back onto real roads with two lanes and some even had a stripe painted down the middle.  We needed to make a bathroom stop for one of us, so I pulled into a driveway in order to turn around and go back to a gas station (there are not many of them around, it seems) and we found a nice little campground with holidays campers.  The bathroom here was fine and we got to drive to within about two feet of a peacock that lives at the campground. He just stood there and let us take his photo.  That was a nice little side track.

Eventually we returned to really large roads and made good times toward Penzance.  We saw many, many wind turbines on the hillsides and we also got stuck behind some very slow moving vehicles but we finally got to Penzance.  

 Myrtle did it again.  As I was turning into the street on which our hotel is located, I miscalculated and hit the curb.  I have hit a few curbs here (You try driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road and I bet you’ll be a little bit off here and there also.) but this curb was a very high sharp cornered curb.  The shock was so bad that it even put the car out of drive and into reverse!!!  And red lights started flashing on the dash saying to STOP and informing me that I had a flat tire.  I figured I shouldn’t stop right there since it was the beginning of a severe hill and right at the intersection of a small and a very busy road, so I kept going up the hill to the hotel.  The parking lot is very small and the parking spaces are very small but I was finally able to pull into the top space – I am only blocking in two cars!!!!  

We unloaded the car and went in to register at the hotel.  We have three single rooms (which are fairly small) and two double rooms (which are larger).  I called Avis and made arrangements for a garage to pick up the car tomorrow morning between 9 and 10 and take it to replace or repair the tire.  Since I think the tire is not reparable, I hope they can replace it.  We’ve altered our plans for tomorrow so that we will be taking a taxi to St. Ives and Mount St. Micheal or we may take the train to St Ives or we may arrange a private tour of the area.  As far as I’m concerned, I hate it happened but since no one was hurt in the incident, I’ll not be real concerned about it.  We did buy extra insurance so I guess that was a good thing!!

We had dinner here at the hotel and the restaurant is quite fancy.  The chef agreed to make us sandwiches instead of the regular dinners and we really appreciated that.  We had club sandwiches and ham and cheese sandwiches (some with chutney) and for dessert, we had peach/almond tarts with clotted cream, or brownie with ice cream, or just plain ice cream.  

We were all tired so we headed to our rooms to rest.  Actually everyone but me went to shower and then watch the first episode of the fourth season of Downton Abbey.  That’s right – it started tonight on British television and we got to watch it.  I ended up listening to it as I went from room to room loading the day’s photos onto my camera and then typing the journal.  It was nice to see the places in Bampton that were used in the program as Downton.  I might have to actually watch the first three seasons.  

So, today had it adventures to say the least, but it was a good day.  I hope the car gets fixed without any complications tomorrow, but regardless I know that we will figure out whatever we need to do to take care of ourselves and still enjoy our trip.