March 22. The Southwest 1: Exeter, Falmouth, Pendennis Castle, Lizard Point, St. Michael’s Mount, Penzance, St. Ives & Newquay

Long day today. Kids were up before 6am.. why does it always happen on the weekend? iPad to the rescue. We had a very nice breakfast at the hotel – freshly baked croissants piping hot. Isabella tried hers with honey, jam, and marmalade.

We had a big agenda for the day and Exeter was only the base to start our exploration but we figured since everything will be closed until 10am anyway we have a bit of time to explore. We walked over to Exeter Cathedral. Before we really made a decision to come in, the automatic doors opened and we somehow were ushered inside and past the ticket booth.

We really liked it. Exeter cathedral has a number of cool features lovingly highlighted by the staff and in the guide: a hole in the door leading to the giant astronomical clock – for the cats who took care of church rats in the past. Some really different looking sarcophagi sculptures - one was a completely dried out looking very tall skeleton, the other was a colorful courtly lady playfully lying on the side, with her hand resting on the skull, a trio of effigies of a husband and wife and his nephew lying beneath the two like a lover in hiding.  

After the cathedral we headed our to the Quay - beautiful restored area along the river Exe probably giving the city its name. There were little cute souvenir stores, pretty bridges, and sun shining bright :)

But it was soon time to get started on our journey. We stocked up on some genuine Cornwall pastys (sadly still nowhere even close to kibinai) and headed to the next point: Falmouth. There were more than enough nice sites missed along the way but we had to keep going to reach our final destination in time.

Falmouth

Falmouth is a pretty Southern town with beautiful blue lagoon dotted with ships. It does look a bit like an English Riviera. We walked along the High street and then attracted by the sounds of music and crowds diverted to the main square. There was a kind of sports event going on there. The highlight was a lady dressed in 70s style, playing disco music leading a bunch of similar looking followers in some aerobics exercises. If you were there 30, nay 40 years ago at this point (!!!) it would have probably looked the same... maybe ladies would be younger.

Pendennis Castle

We got back on the main street and then walked along the beach a bit to collect some shells and drove on to Pendennis Castle. As with prior places, it was beautiful. We immediately climbed to the top and watched the surrounding sea and St. Mawes castle across the water. As we started walking down the stairs, Dan was startled by the loud sounds of the battle. One of the rooms downstairs has motion activated sound recording of the battle sounds. There were also several statues posed in the character clothing in the room. They were set up to appear to be loading up and shooting the cannon.

When the shot was fired on the audio, smoke started coming out of the cannon's muzzle. Isabella did not like that bit at all. She rushed us out right into sleet! We all laughed but she did not find this funny either. Fortunately it was over in about a minute and a full rainbow instantly appeared, almost as a make up for any discomfort. This finally appeased Isabella :)

Lizard Point

Our next stop was Lizard point - the Southernmost point of England. The drive resembled a bit our drive to Malin Head last summer. It feels like it was such a long time ago. When we arrived to the village right before the final point we saw that there was a way to drive all the way to the target location so we kept going along the claustrophobic narrow one car lane between the walls of grass covered stone.

There were occasional passing areas to deal with the incoming traffic from the opposite direction. Someone took the pains to remove the "P"s from all of the signs. At last we arrived there and were rewarded with stellar views. There was a way to get down to the beach past some abandoned past-war military building just like in Main Head. It was very windy, but by the time we reached the stone beach the wind has died down.

We were running out of time. From the many options we planned for, we opted for St. Michael's Mount - monastery on a tiny island right off the coast. During the low tide, it is possible to walk over from the mainland. When we arrived we saw people walking along the path. As we descended from the town level and started running toward the island the road was still dry but by the time we reached the middle, waves started splashing over the road portion close to the island. If we were there maybe 30 minutes earlier, we could have made it. It looks beautiful - as it is from the fairy tale.

As a small consolation we started to climb another much smaller rock closer to the mainland. It looked a bit strenuous, but then Dan found some stairs - apparently someone had made, for better watching of St. Michael's Mount.

We only had a few hours of daylight left. After a quick dash through Penzance (no real pirates there, ever!), we drove over to St. Ives, the quintessential English Riviera.

St.Ives

It is probably more quintessential in the summer. It did win over all the others in terms of the number of art shops. All closed regrettably. And most everything else. So we settled down at the Beach restaurant - recommended by Yelp, tripadvisor, and us all :) Fish stew made from the heavy cream with fried bacon and onions and with at least half a dozen kinds of fish will live on our memories for a while :)

The final stop was Newquay to get positioned for our explorations on Sunday. I made reservations at Great Western mistakenly believing it was Best Western. It was not the same thing. But the room was clean, the blankets were real, and there was a view of the ocean in the dark.