Cornwall

Thursday we got up early and drove down to Cornwall, the extreme southwest of England. We started the day at Tintagel Castle, rumored site of King Arthur’s conception, but now it’s only ruins. It sits right on the shore of the Atlantic – simply beautiful! Hopefully the pictures will help you get the idea. We climbed all over the rocks and explored a little tunnel, though we couldn’t explore “Merlin’s Cave” because it’s a tidal cave and our trip was during high tide, so it was too dangerous.

Ocean viewThe Atlantic!
The group on the hike up to the castleThe "tunnel" we followed for like 20 feetSo happy to be here!
By the time we hiked back to town, I was starving, so some of us popped into a pasty shop to get traditional Cornish pasties. Mmmm, so good! They’re full of steak, potatoes, and onions, so basically a Sunday dinner in a big flaky pastry shell. We’d had several pasties before – there are Greggs all over Britain – but how often do you get to eat a Cornish pasty in Cornwall? Once in a lifetime : )

Me and Zoe enjoying the best pasties EVER!
We spent the rest of the afternoon at St. Ives, a little beach town totally geared toward tourists. The day was pretty nice, even if we weren’t tempted to swim, so we climbed around on the rocks, waded in the water, and walked through a bunch of little art shops in town. It was so warm that I actually got a little sunburned! I didn’t even know that was possible here!

Wading on the beachclimbing on the rocks
In the last few hours of daylight we went to some Neolithic sites that were basically some rocks in fields : ) Lanyon Quoit and Men an Tol were pretty cool, and we had fun getting some pictures. The hikes out to the sites were particularly fun, considering that they were covered in slugs and Camilla cannot stand slugs. She actually thought they were make-believe creatures before this trip. Forgive her, she’s from Las Vegas, so she kind of freaked when she found one in our house the second week…

I work out... at Lanyon Quoit!One of Tom's better - but less executable - ideasMen an Tol. They're about waist-high, so not spectacular
We checked into our youth hostel in Penzance to find that it had been completely remodeled. It was so nice! We had five of us in each room, and the beds were way more comfortable than ours at home. It was clean, quiet, and served a really mean hot breakfast. I wanted to stay there forever!

Friday we got up and drove to St. Michael’s Mount, a tidal peninsula not far from Penzance. We arrived at high tide, so we had to take the boat out to the island. There’s a big castle on top of the mountain, and the family who owned it in the 1600s still lives there! Weird. We walked up the path and got some gorgeous views of the ocean and the island and the castle itself. We got to tour most of the house, though not the part that the family lives in, obviously. They wouldn’t allow photography inside the building, but I got some great shots of the outside and the view and such. It was a cloudy day, but barely sprinkled, so we were pretty thankful. At the end of our visit it was still high tide, so we got back on a boat and went to the mainland. When we got back in the car, it started raining pretty hard, so we only stopped to look at one more Neolithic site, Hurler’s stones, and then booked it home. We had planned to visit Exeter Cathedral, but we were all pretty tired, and some girls wanted to get home as early as possible to get to a YSA dance in Merthyr Tydfil that night.

View of the island from the shoreGetting into the boat The castle!On one of the turretsView from the top. Such a pretty coastline! Can you imagine looking out your window everyday and seeing that?
I was sad to leave Cornwall, but happy to get home to some internet access : )