Europe 2008 Part 7

More of Cornwall

It was about as far to our most distant stopping-place as it had been to each of the others. This time we reached Padstow, a fishing village near the mouth of the Camel estuary, where Rick Stein has his restaurants.

We settled for an ice-cream as we strolled along the quayside, looking at the boats, and the houses and the people as well as some high-quality art shops - very tempting!

 

Then we turned around and drove back, this time up the main road, to Okehampton and our hostel for another night.

 

Our plan had been to visit the Eden Project the next day, but we were running short of time for this leg of our journey, the weather was doubtful, and the Eden Project was quite a long way further.

 

So we changed our ideas and drove south through the countryside to Plymouth, where we sat on the waterfront beside the Hoe and ate our lunch. It looks rather a dismal day but there was no wind and the surroundings were so peaceful.

Here I am inspecting the Hoe, and thinking of all the historic associations it has.

 

We knew of Drake and Plymouth's development as a naval base, and the launching-place for the Mayflower journey to North America, and the emigrations to New Plymouth.

 

Many of our ancestors left England from this harbour.

 

 

 

 

 

 

But Plymouth reminded us of somewhere like Sydney; either much of its expansion had happened at the same time as the growth of New South Wales, or much of it had been destroyed in the terrible bombings it received during the Second World War, and the rebuild since then made the city appear more recent than we expected. Here's Margaret sampling the coffee from a sea-side café.