Pirates of Penzance

the route

Last stop in our tour of southwest England: the tip of Cornwall.  We were drawn here mainly because of one specific attraction, St. Michael’s Mount, a castle that used to be a monastery perched on a tiny island that juts out of the middle of the bay.  Am I confused, you wonder? Do I possibly think that Anna and I have made it to France, and are viewing Mont San Michel as our train curves around the bay?  No, they are, in fact, two different places.  In the 12^th century, monks from Mont San Michel built the Cornwall island-castle, so the two are explicitly interconnected.

St. Michael's Mount

To get to the island, you can either take a ferry, or walk across a causeway, which opens for a few hours every day at high tide.  We were set on walking the causeway, but arrived before it was open, so we killed time by eating a lot of sugar.  Last day, what can I say? 

we've drunk too much tea lately

We were too impatient to wait until full low tide, so we got a little wet. Props to the lady in a wheelchair being dragged through the water. 

The castle is up a steep, uneven stone path, the same path that pilgrims have walked up for hundreds of years.  Severely sloping, perfectly manicured gardens fall away into the ocean on all sides.  The view is spectacular.  Anna, the castle fanatic, thought it was perfect, and would like to get in touch with the owners and possibly marry into the family. 

We were also lucky enough while in Penzance to get a visit from our other sort-of British cousin, Bertie Hill, who drove down from north Cornwall.  Having friends to visit with while abroad is such a huge bonus! When I asked our landlord where we should go for dinner, he suggested what I thought was the “Admiral Bimbo,” which made me laugh and made him look confused, but which actually turned out to be the “Admiral Benbow” the pub featured at the beginning of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island.  Pirate life for me.

what is going on here?

For our last night we got Thai food.  But really, I promise we ate a ton of British food the whole trip.  For lunch on the last day we had a Cornish pasty (which rhymes with nasty, not pastry… but is far from nasty).  Thanks for the pronunciation correction, Bertie. We stuck with the normal meat and potatoes pasties this time (Anna’s Asian chicken pasty the first time we tried them was a little too much of a culture clash.)

It seems like an age ago that we were in London.  This trip has flown by so fast.  Next we are off on our separate adventures, Anna to begin freshman year at Northwestern, and me on to Sevilla to begin my real study abroad. 

Cheers, England! 

She Sells Sea Shells by the Sidmouth Shore

Two trains, a long hilly walk, a bus, and no lunch after we left Bath, we were in Sidmouth.  The longer of the two train rides was hilarious.  We were stuck in the standing area, there being no seats left, along with a ragtag group of other people including a young mother with her smiling baby, Charlie, a very fit looking older man crammed into the bike compartment with his bike, two young girls with a box of cupcakes and a large and raucous group of young to middle-aged men, all holding beers, apparently not their firsts of the day, despite it being 11 am. It turned into a veritable party in the little compartment, the men trying to weedle the cupcake holders into giving up their sweets (“Oy, are those cakes for me? They’re my favorite!”), and the young mother trying to get in touch with her own mother on the other side of the crowd, with everyone else boisterously joining in (“Mother!” “Where’s her mother!” “Bring the mother!”), while I wedged my foot under baby Charlie’s stroller so he wouldn’t roll into the cupcake girls or me.  Who needs seating anyway, turns out standing is way more fun.

Sidmouth is a perfectly picturesque seaside Devon town.  Totally without meaning to (must be that bank holiday thing) we had arrived in the midst of a celebration weekend.  As our bus teetered into the tiny town, we were accompanied by a procession of limping, costumed, three-legged-race competitors.  It looked like Halloween practice.

The hotel we had found late the night before was right on the beachfront promenade. After we checked in, the receptionist asked cheerfully, “Do you want to take Snuggles?” which turned out to be the itty-bitty elevator. It reminded me a bit of the Little Engine That Could; it needed some encouragement to make it up to the third floor. At the top, we found we had been given a gorgeous oceanfront room.  Really scored with that one, I guess sometimes waiting until the absolute last minute pays off?  Also there were fireworks our first night. I’m starting to like these bank holidays more and more.

Our fellow occupants at the hotel were almost entirely elderly couples, which was perfect, as they encouraged us by their very presence to keep to the point of this 36 hours in Sidmouth – relaxation.  After ten days of hard-core sightseeing, we were ready for some downtime.  We spent our full day in Sidmouth meandering around the town and beach, climbing up the hills to either side of the beach, and making it back to the hotel for breakfast at 9, coffee at 11, tea at 4, and dinner at 6:30.   Almost hobbit status.

 

relaxation day: achieved

Bath Time

Next destination with the BritRail southwest England pass: Bath, home of Romans, fashion, and mineral waters.  Made notable (at least to me) as the place where Jane Austen continually sent her characters to see and be seen.  Needless to say, Anna and I were strutting our stuff.

Prince Bladud. What a guy.

On our first morning in Bath, we took the advice of our kind proprietor and went on the free tour of the city, where we were treated to a fascinating historical synopsis of the place.  The history of Bath reminded me of the history of Sevilla, in terms of the various conquering peoples that inhabited and transformed the area in their own ways.  But in Bath instead of fighting they bathed and relaxed. 

Bath, like Sevilla, is founded on a legend.  Apparently ancient Prince Bladud caught leprosy and was magically cured by the mysterious waters of the hot spring here, after watching his pigs be cured.  Because they were leper-pigs, obviously.

When the Romans invaded they came with a bang, as per usual. The elaborate bathing house and temple complex that they built has been used by every civilization after them.  They erected their stone temples and walls, they bathed, they governed, they tossed hordes of Roman coins into their wells (an archaeological trove today) and just as suddenly as they had come conquering they were gone. The following Saxon and Norman invaders continued to regard the hot springs as sacred. 

that water looks appetizing, right? 

Hundreds of years later it became fashionable to “take the waters” in Bath.  Which meant parading around in the latest fashions, drinking ridiculous concoctions made from the mineral water, and generally having a jolly time. The hot water legitimately did make people feel better, as most of the aristocrats were dying slowly of lead poisoning.  Anna and I tried some of the water and almost choked it was so earthy tasting, but I plan on never being sick again. Knock on wood.  In addition to touring the Roman Baths we also went to the Fashion Museum.  I feel like a slob compared to every other century.  Shoutout to Haley Carlborg - there was a mannequin in the fashion museum wearing a fancy dress with Converse.  You go girl.

Our second night in Bath was taken up entirely with surfing the Internet trying to find somewhere to go next.  We had only planned as far as Bath, and I hadn’t anticipated every SINGLE room in southern England to be booked for this particular weekend  Unbeknownst to us it happened to be a bank holiday (I know, what?) and apparently every family was on vacation.  With the help of mom canvassing the web for us across the ocean, we ended up finding one room in a hotel in a tiny town on the coast called Sidmouth.  There was some handy late availability dinner-and-breakfast-included cheapish deal, and we jumped on it.  So off to Sidmouth next. Olay!

Who Gives a **** About an Oxford Comma?

I hope you were humming the Vampire Weekend song along with the title.  (Sidenote: an "Oxford comma" is a comma placed before the final conjunction in a series of three or more items, as in: I enjoyed the tea, crumpets, and cakes.) The things those academic types think up.

the steepest

During our short stay in Oxford we felt surrounded by the stories of countless famous and familiar authors that drew inspiration from this place including: William Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis, and Phillip Pullman.  Whabbam look at that Oxford comma usage.  The city is less than a two-hour bus ride from London, and was much smaller than I expected.  In fact, we unintentionally stumbled upon the Radcliffe Camera, one of the most quintessential sites in Oxford, as we were lugging our suitcases over the cobblestones in search of our hotel.  Which, by the way, was quite a little find in itself.  We stayed in a tiny little bed and breakfast tucked into the heart of Oxford off its own little side street and apparently built in the seventeen hundreds.  Our room was up a crooked, steep  staircase at the top of the hotel that looked out over the gabled roofs. Stepping out onto a balcony from the stairs we found ourselves leaning directly over the front courtyard of a legendary and quite hidden pub that our friend Adrea had told us to look out for, The Turf Tavern.  We ate both our dinners there.

English cuisine we've sampled so far:

Scones with clotted cream - yum
Fish and chips - a classic
Steak and ale pie - perfect pub food
Scotch egg - a hardboiled egg wrapped in sausage meat and baked coated in bread crumbs
Cornish pasty - a baked savory pastry with fillings of meat and vegetables
Full English breakfast - eggs, bacon, sausage, tomatoes, mushrooms and .. baked beans..?
'Whippies' - extra creamy ice cream that tastes like it came straight from the cow

what a great mew

While aimlessly wandering through Oxford our first night we discovered a "mew," which is basically an old carriage alleyway.  Upon the discovery of our windy little Oxford mew we were so intrigued by the name that we tried to use it as often as possible.  As in, "You're in trouble. Go to the mew."

One day we took the bus to Blenheim Palace, Churchill's birthplace and one of the grandest palaces in England. It was breathtaking.  In addition to touring the state rooms, we went on a weird behind-the-scenes, perspective-of-the-servants tour on the third floor.  We were led through the strange exhibit, complete with moving mannequins, by a time traveling holographic image of one of the old servants.  Anna and I decided we are not super into these use-your-imagination exhibits that seem to be popular here.  But apart from that, the palace and grounds were beautiful.  I felt like Elizabeth Bennet gone to tour Pemberly with her aunt and uncle, plus a sister and minus the aunt, uncle and wealthy love interest. Womp womp.

We toured the colleges with a ridiculously quintessential looking old man who had attended Oxford some years ago.  Although he looked the perfect Englishman, he had an odd way of speaking - a British accent but occasionally odd grammar.  We thought possibly he was French. He turned out to be from Lebanon, which shows how much I know about accents.  Anyway, he had lots of fascinating stories to tell.  It was dreamlike seeing this place that I have read so much about, in fiction and non-fiction. Very old world.


Shoutout to Adrea Piazza for the tips on what to see and do, and cheers to Hannah Nesbat, arriving soon for a year at Oxford.