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!