8 July: Home Again & U.K. Reflections

We told our hosts at the Castle Guest House that we didn’t need a hot breakfast this morning – just a little toast and coffee would be fine. (John wanted to get out of there without any breakfast at all but I told him we were paying for it, after all!) We chowed down as quickly as we could in the slightly creepy basement breakfast room and high-tailed it out of Dover as fast as the E-Class could carry us. We easily made it to the Euro Tunnel terminal, about twenty minutes away, for our 8:30 train to Calais. The return train ride was noneventful. We were very happy to return to normal driving (although I have to admit that for weeks afterwards I kept having “English moments” when I had to ask myself if I was driving on the correct side of the road!) We stopped for gas somewhere in France and went into the shop to buy some snacks. The lady at the register asked me if we were buying gas and without even thinking I said, “Wir haben schon bezahlen.” (“We already paid.”) The lady just laughed – I guess she knew what I meant. It took me another ten seconds or so to come up with “Nous avons payé.” I thought it was interesting how quickly my brain slipped back into German! The drive home to Stuttgart took the expected eight hours, and fortunately was more or less traffic-free.

So our grand British adventure has finally come to an end. We drove upwards of 3,000 kilometers in 17 days, traversing nearly the entire length and breadth of England and Scotland twice and exploring some of the best scenery that the island has to offer. Our favorite locations were Cornwall and Glen Coe, which is rather ironic because I was told by some people that they were too far apart to visit in one trip. But I had my heart set on visiting Tintagel and hiking in the Highlands and I’m so glad we managed to fit them both in. Scotland as a whole will be high on our list of future vacation destinations. The British people were generally friendly and warm, and I was thrilled to finally be able to place the myriad British accents I have heard over the course of my life with their proper geographic region.

With the exception of one or two meals, our dining experiences were quite positive (who hasn’t heard nightmare stories about horrible English food?), albeit dreadfully expensive. I can't sum up our experience without putting in a word of caution to anyone researching B&Bs in Great Britain: they can be fabulous and cheaper than traditional hotels, but we were very surprised by the wildly inconsistent ratings. The differences between the 5-star Elmview and 4-star Castle Guest House were positively shocking. Overall, food and lodging in the U.K. are considerably more expensive than in continental Europe when compared in U.S. dollars. While this wouldn't prevent us from making future trips to the U.K., it's certainly a factor to consider in trip planning.

As for cities and towns, Edinburgh was fabulous, Stirling looked interesting, and we enjoyed York, but we came away with the overall impression of many of the towns we passed through as being rather dreary and run-down. We suppose that this is partly a reflection of the U.K.’s rather turbulent economic past. For this reason I was pleased that I had planned this trip with a focus on scenic drives and countryside – in that respect, we got exactly what we’d hoped for.

I’ll make no bones about it; the driving was definitely tough. We were warned ahead of time that it would be slow going, and I never planned for us to drive more than about 250 miles in a day, which was a wise decision. Between the impossibly narrow roads, ridiculous number of roundabouts, and low speed limits, it really takes a lot longer to get from point A to point B than you might think when looking at a map. And did I mention the speed cameras? Yes, "Big Brother" Britain has a lot of speed cameras. Or rather, they have a lot of signs indicating that there are speed cameras hiding thereabouts. We didn't actually see the cameras very often. The best roads in terms of driving enjoyment were in northern Wales and around Glen Coe (but Scottish drivers really are nuts!). We felt very lucky to have our big, comfortable car with automatic transmission and a navi, which certainly saved us a lot of angst. Driving on the “wrong” side of the car was not a problem (especially when you have a co-driver to watch for oncoming traffic from the right at difficult turns and roundabouts), and we felt it was far better than the alternative of renting an unfamiliar manual transmission car without a navi and driving on the right side of the car for the first time (which means shifting with your left hand). But I have to admit that our giant E-Class with German plates got more than a few funny looks. We couldn't help feeling like we should have a sign in our window that said, "We're Americans!"

In sum, I have finally fulfilled a lifelong dream to visit some of the most famous ancient and medieval sites in Great Britain. The waves crashing on the rocks of Tintagel, the windswept landscape of Stonehenge, the echoing halls of Caernarfon Castle, the mist-shrouded peaks of the Highlands...these are memories I will keep with me forever.

Be sure to check out all of my photos at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hausfrau/collections/72157601997561583/

7 July: York to Dover on a Sunny Day

We were served up a traditional English breakfast in the Acer Hotel's quaint dining room; the coffee was particularly good. We checked out at 9:30 and I took the wheel again, driving out of town and hooking up with the M1 motorway. We had figured on a 4-hour drive to Dover, which would give us most of the afternoon to explore the castle and WWII tunnels. We were so wrong.

First of all, as luck would have it, our last day in England was the only day of the entire trip that it didn’t rain a drop. Unfortunately we spent most of it in the car. Somewhere near London we got caught up in a traffic jam caused by a major accident (although it was mostly cleared up by the time we passed it). Then it was just one long traffic jam all the way around London on the M25 (and we’re talking miles outside of London, on a Saturday afternoon). At one point Susie shunted us off the motorway only to deposit us in another traffic jam on city streets, then routed us right back onto the motorway. The final long delay was caused by the toll gates on the Queen Elizabeth Bridge over the Thames. When we finally got past the bridge and turned onto the A20 to Dover, the traffic disappeared and I was able to pick up the pace to 75-80 mph (along with the rest of the equally pissed-off Brits, some of whom were going upwards of 100 mph). But the damage had been done and we didn’t get to Dover until nearly 4 pm, the drive having taken 2.5 hours longer than we anticipated.

The town of Dover is not much to look at – it was largely destroyed in World War II – but the sprawling castle on a cliff above the town was an amazing sight to behold as we approached from the south. We drove right past our B&B, deciding to head straight up to the castle so as not to waste any time. We parked in one of three huge surface lots near the top of the hill and stopped at the visitor center (our English Heritage passes got us in for free), where they told us to visit the keep and casements first, as they were both closing at 5 pm (the keep was closing for a wedding – how cool would that be?)

Dover Castle is a quintessential medieval fortress, the square towers and massive walls of the inner bailey (right) conjuring fairytale images of knights in shining armor. Construction began on the castle under the Norman King Henry II in 1181 and much of the main structure, including the keep, dates to this time, although many additions were made over the ensuing centuries. We rushed through the myriad stone corridors, spiraling staircases, and high-ceilinged chambers of the keep, making our way to the very top of the battlements for a spectacular panoramic view over the castle’s outer defenses, Dover’s harbor and cruise ship port, and the sparkling blue English Channel.

We were a bit confused by what they had told us in the visitor center about the casements; I thought they were referring to the medieval tunnels on the south side of the fortress, so we went there next. We explored the maze of subterranean passageways and cannon emplacements, trying to imagine what it must have been like to hide out in the tunnels during a siege. Then we went down to see what we could see of the World War II tunnels, figuring that they were closed for the evening as it was now well past 5 pm. As luck would have it, we arrived just as they were allowing one final group through on a shortened tour, which we were able to join. And we were so glad we did! The tunnel complex was constructed at the end of the eighteenth century during the Napoleonic Wars. Dover had become a garrison town and the army needed additional barracks and equipment storage. The solution was to carve a maze of tunnels into the cliffs below the castle, which housed more than 2,000 men at the height of the wars and are the only underground barracks ever built in Britain. The tunnels were abandoned for more than a century after the wars, but found new life at the outbreak of World War II, when they were converted first into an air-raid shelter and later a military command center and underground hospital. In May 1940, Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsey used the tunnels as his headquarters for the legendary evacuation of some 383,000 British troops from Dunkirk, France, known as Operation Dynamo, an effort which effectively saved the British army to “fight another day.” Ramsey joined the British army at the age of 15 (by lying about how old he was) and retired after fighting World War I, but was brought out of retirement for WWII. After Operation Dynamo he went on to help plan the naval attack on D-Day and was killed in a plane crash in France in 1945, just before the end of the war. The secret tunnels and rooms spanning five levels are outfitted to look just as they did during World War II, including the telephone exchange with its enormous switchboards and the Coastal Artillery Operations Room full of charts and schedules (one of the ops rooms is pictured above). The whole place gives an absolutely fascinating snapshot of the war effort.

After our tour of the tunnels we went out onto the battlements, where a statue of Admiral Ramsay looks out over the Straits of Dover. Buffeted by a fierce wind, we took in the view of the white cliffs of Dover (Yes, we finally saw them!) and watched a cruise ship come into port (photo, right). We walked around the gun emplacements on the outer curtain wall and returned to the center of the castle complex, where the imposing hulk of a 1^st-century Roman lighthouse stands next to an 11^th-century Saxon church, surrounded by the massive grass-covered earthworks of a Norman hill fort (photo, below). We were finally politely shooed out just after 6 pm and made our way back to the car. We were literally among the last visitors to leave, so at least we milked our meager two hours at Dover Castle for all we could.

We drove down the hill to the Castle Guest House, parked on the street, and checked in. As we walked in we caught a glimpse through a doorway of an extremely messy living room, where some of the guests appeared to be enjoying afternoon tea. The proprietor was polite, if a bit gruff, telling us that our car was fine parked where it was on the street, and leading us up a rickety staircase to our room near the top of the house. In a nutshell, the only redeeming quality about this place is its location at the foot of the castle hill (you can see the roof of the place on the left side of the photo below). I had trouble finding a decent place to stay in Dover (the only place listed in Fodor’s, a 4-room B&B, was booked by the time I made my reservations) and in the end I think we would have been better off staying at one of the chain hotels along the waterfront. The Castle Guest House has actually been given a 4-star ranking by some outfit called Enjoy England, and all I can say is: do not trust their rating system! Compared with the many types of accomodations we have experienced throughout Europe, we would give this place 1½ stars, 2 at best. The room was cramped and musty, with a double bed covered with a rather dingy red satin comforter. The tiny bathroom had seen better days, with a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling for a light fixture. John said he's been in gas station restrooms that were nicer. Perhaps most bizarrely, the room had the strangest wallpaper I have ever seen – a repeating pattern of peach-hued roses, and next to each rose was scrawled the name of an exotic plant that had absolutely nothing to do with a rose, like “Rhododendron Himalayas” or some South East Asian shrub. The whole place had a bit of a Twilight Zone feel to it.

On the bright side, the information booklet in our room recommended a great Indian restaurant called Light of India only a 5-minute walk away. It was supposedly voted one of the ten best Indian restaurants in England. We ordered vegetable samosas and two combination platters featuring sampler-sized portions of several curries, tandoori chicken, tikka masala, lentils, and raita. We were totally stuffed afterwards (with wine, £45 pounds) so we took a walk along the pebbly beach afterwards to work it off. The castle stood out in sharp profile against the evening sky above us, and we could see the arched entrance to the secret wartime tunnels set into the chalky white cliffs.

Aside from having one of the busiest cruise ports in the world, the town of Dover itself is, sadly, positively dead. Some shortsighted post-war planners destroyed the waterfront with a huge, hideous apartment complex that ruins the panorama of the castle above the town and there is practically no downtown to speak of. A sign posted in front of the ugly apartments pretty much says it all: it is titled "Historic Dover," but the plaque has been ripped off and the empty box that is left is disfigured with graffiti. All that remains of the waterfront is a grand old hotel, now a Best Western (which likely would have been a far better choice for our lodging!) (photo, right). We couldn’t believe that a place boasting such a spectacular castle and housing so much fascinating history could be so run-down and dismal. Dover Castle is definitely worth a visit, but we suggest spending the night elsewhere. Honestly, if we hadn’t pre-paid for our room (and had already reserved Euro Tunnel tickets for the next day), we would have been tempted to just drive on home!

6 July: Edinburgh to York via Hadrian's Wall

Today marks the beginning of the end of our UK tour. For the next three days and two nights we are officially on the “way home”. We will drive from Edinburgh to York today and from York to Dover on Saturday, and then we’ll have a marathon drive home to Stuttgart via the Euro Tunnel on Sunday. Before setting out this morning, we were fortified with another delicious breakfast courtesy of the Elmview – slices of fresh mango and strawberries with Greek yogurt, followed by pancakes filled with sautéed apples and pears, topped with maple syrup and cream. We ate with the two sisters, a British/Dutch couple, and a young Indian couple from New Jersey. We shared a few laughs about Independence Day with Robin, and the Indian man commented that it took India four hundred years to accomplish what the Americans did in less than a century.

Before checking out we walked down the street to a grocery store with an ATM so we could withdraw cash to pay our bill, thereby getting a 5% discount. After settling up and bidding farewell to Robin (I told him they had the best B&B ever), we went to extricate the E-Class from the tiny carpark. Unfortunately there were two other cars parked next to us now and it was physically impossible to get the car out, so we called Robin and had to wait for some other guests to come and get their car.

We finally set off at about 10 am for our drive south to York. Once safely out of Edinburgh, John stopped at a gas station and I took the wheel to try my hand at English driving for the first time on the whole trip. I’m not sure how I managed to go all this time without driving, but John seemed to have it down pat and he liked me serving as navigator and co-pilot, so we never wanted to mess with our system. Quite frankly I was perfectly happy to watch the scenery on this trip (and was constantly on the lookout for good photo ops, of course). After sitting in the passenger seat for the past two weeks, I was pretty used to the sensation of driving on the wrong side of the road in our left-hand drive car, so it didn’t take much time to familiarize myself with it (although going clockwise into roundabouts felt awfully weird). I didn’t have to drive on any motorways, as we took two-lane A roads the whole way, including the A86, which was quite fun – lots of long straight stretches with blind crests and sweeping curves. We headed through the region known as the Scottish Borders – a pastoral landscape of rolling hills, pasture, and forest – and stopped at the border between England and Scotland for the necessary photos. (For some reason there was a big multilingual sign at the border reminding people to drive on the left, even though you couldn’t have gotten yourself to this point without driving on the left for hundreds of miles. We found it especially funny because the German translation was misspelled – “links fahran” instead of “links fahren.”) We didn’t want to drive south back through England without visiting at least one site along Hadrian’s Wall – the massive line of fortifications that once marked the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire. Stretching 73 miles across the breadth of England from Wallsend in the east to Bowness-on-Solway in the west, the wall was used for more than 250 years to protect Roman-occupied Britain from invasion by the Scottish barbarians. Emperor Hadrian ordered the construction of the wall in 122 AD (it was completed in only four years) and Emperor Severus had it repaired 80 years later. The wall was originally 15 feet wide and 9 feet thick, with a 20-foot wide, 10-foot deep ditch behind it called a vallum. Large forts housing 500 to 1,000 legionnaires were constructed every five miles or so. Smaller forts called milecastles, manned by about 30 soldiers, stood at every mile point, and between each milecastle were two smaller turrets housing four men each. Much of the wall was dismantled during the Jacobite uprising of 1745; the stone was used to pave the Military Road that is now the B6318. A few substantial stretches of the wall survive, particularly between Housesteads and Birdowald, along with the remains of several forts, and the route is popular with hikers. We knew we would probably only have time to visit one site, and our Fodor’s guidebook made the choice easy: “If you have time to visit only one Hadrian’s Wall site, Housesteads Roman Fort, Britain’s most complete example of a Roman fort, is your best bet.”

After parking at the main visitor center just off the B6318, we hiked about ten minutes through open sheep pasture to the museum and the fort, which is spread over several acres, its crumbling walls and towers exposed to the ravages of time and weather. It had rained off and on all morning, but it stopped raining long enough for us to spend an hour or so exploring the fort and admiring the views of the surrounding countryside, including an impressive span of Hadrian’s Wall itself, which extended down the hill from the fort and disappeared over a crest in the distance (photo, above). Excavations have revealed many artifacts which are housed in the small museum, and well-designed interpretive signs scattered across the site help recreate the scene of a bustling Roman fort, describing the construction and purpose of the granaries (which had elevated floors to keep the grain dry and protected from vermin), the barracks, the hospital, the colonnaded headquarters building adorned with the stumps of stone columns, and the commandant’s house, which featured a heated floor (the floor slabs were elevated on stone pillars so heated air could circulate underneath). At the two gates on either side of the fort you can see the deep depressions carved into the stone by the passing of countless cart wheels. The best-preserved structure is the public latrine, located at the lowest point of the fort (the southeast corner) to allow for the best water flow. You can clearly make out the well-engineered system of stone troughs that funneled water into the stone channel circling the rectangular seating platform (photo, right).

At the gift shop I decided to buy a translation of Seutonius’ biography of the first twelve Caesars, since I really enjoyed reading the biography of Augustus. When I went to pay for the book I saw a photograph for sale by the cash register of a tall sycamore tree in a very distinctive gap between two hills, which I immediately recognized from a scene in the 1991 movie “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” starring Kevin Costner. I turned the photo over and sure enough, it was “Kevin Costner’s Sycamore Tree” (the spot is also known as Sycamore Gap). I had never realized that the wall they climb around on in the scene was Hadrian’s Wall. I asked the lady at the cashier where the tree was and she said it was just a mile down the road, so we drove past it on our way out (photo, below). John and I shared a tuna and cucumber sandwich and a Coke from the visitor center snack bar before we left. We turned south at a place called Twice Brewed and took a narrow B road to hook up with the A86 again.

We made good time to York, despite continued rain, arriving around 6 pm. We found the Acer Hotel (actually a B&B) in a quiet neighborhood of brick rowhouses a few blocks from the old town (photo, right), parked on the street, and were greeted by Karen, who showed us to our tiny, floral-decorated room on the top floor. We hauled our suitcases upstairs and then set out to explore the old town and find dinner. Karen had warned us to bypass the bars and pubs on the way into town because they are notorious for “stag and hen” (bachelor and bachelorette) parties, especially on the weekends. She was right – the place was a madhouse even at 7 pm and we counted at least a half-dozen stretch limos (including a stretch Hummer) on our way into town. En route we passed through the impressive Micklegate in the well-preserved medieval wall and crossed the Ousse River, which is lined with old warehouses turned into posh nightclubs and restaurants. The sun had come out and it was a lovely, balmy evening. It took us about fifteen minutes to get to the maze of narrow cobbled streets and alleys that make up the old town. We quickly found the Shambles, York’s famous shopping street of leaning 14^th-century houses (photo below), and then the York Minster, the largest Gothic church in England. It was closed for the evening but quite impressive from the outside. Karen had recommended the evening ghost tour and we saw one getting started in front of the Minster, but we were hungry and didn’t want to stay out late, so we set off to find a restaurant. We walked down Stonegate, another pretty shopping street, and made a big loop around the old town, but most of the restaurants we looked at were too fancy or too expensive.

We finally settled on a casual Italian restaurant called Bella Italia and were seated by the front window. We were waited on by a very nice woman who was actually Italian and the food was surprisingly good. We both had Caesar salads; John had a pizza with pancetta, arugula, mozzarella and olives and I had baked penne pasta with chicken, bacon, cheese, tomatoes, and red onion. We shared “The Godfather” for dessert – a chocolate brownie topped with vanilla and chocolate ice cream, chocolate crunch topping, chocolate sauce, and whipped cream. With a bottle of wine it came to about £50; not too bad considering the value of the dollar! The streets were filled with young partygoers on the way back and the police were out in force. Apparently York is the Key West of England!

30 June: From Wales to the Lakes

This morning we had the porridge oats again (they really do hit the spot on a blustery rainy day) and John had the full breakfast, but I just had a side order of bacon because I think eating all these eggs might kill me (yeah, I know, like eating bacon won't)! We had requested a picnic lunch to take with us, which was a little pricey at £16, but we figured it would be convenient on a long driving day. We thanked Kelly for the wonderful stay at Tan-y-Foel and then headed for Betws-y-Coed to get gas, find an ATM, and look around town a bit. I was surprised to find that there is not much to the town other than a string of slate-gray Victorian B&Bs and some shops. We stopped at a very cool outdoor sporting goods store called Cotswold, where John bought some waterproofing spray for his raincoat and I got some hand and foot warmers, just in case it is miserably cold in Scotland (which is beginning to seem more and more likely).

Even though it was raining and it would mean going a little out of our way, we decided to return to the dramatic Llamberis Pass in Snowdonia that we had driven through yesterday so I could get some photos. The wind was howling like a banshee down the valley, threatening to turn my umbrella inside-out and making picture-taking a bit difficult, but it was gorgeous. We stopped at a spot where sheep were grazing alongside a raging river strewn with massive boulders (photo, right). The clouds were even lower than yesterday, giving the place a very dark, brooding look. You could almost imagine the Welsh fighters holed up in caves high on the mountainsides. I took what pictures I could get and then we headed north back to Conwy. We hooked up with the motorway, drove through a tunnel under the estuary, and continued east along the coast.

We decided to make a brief stop at Rhuddlan Castle for lunch. Rhuddlan is yet another of Edward I’s string of castles, smaller and more ruined than the three we visited yesterday, but still very impressive, sitting squatly along the River Clwyd (photo, right). It was still raining so we ate our picnic lunch in the car (salmon and butter sandwiches, apples, and granola bars) and then went for a quick tour of the castle (our 3-day pass gave us entry here as well). Rhuddlan was constructed between 1277 and 1282 in a concentric plan, but diamond-shaped rather than square, with its gate towers positioned at the corner facing the river instead of along the bailey wall. The massive twin gate towers, thick walls, and three other towers are partially intact, but with huge holes blown through them and part of the exterior stone cladding chipped away. (I’m not sure how people managed to dismantle these castles some three hundred years ago with no more than sledgehammers and pickaxes!)

I bought a Welsh dragon Beanie Baby and a pewter Celtic barrette at the castle gift shop and then we set off on our three-hour drive to the Lake District. We didn’t notice when we passed back into England, but we realized at some point that the signs weren’t in Welsh anymore. It rained most of the way, but our route took us mostly on motorways (M6), so the going was fairly easy. (John continues to insist on doing all the driving because he likes having me as navigator, but I told him he's going to have to let me try driving on the left eventually.) We bypassed Chester, Liverpool, and Manchester and cut westward at Kendal on the A591 towards the Lake District. We only intended this “drive-through” visit to the lakes to give us an impression of the region, so we’ll know if we want to come back in the future. We drove through Windermere and Ambleside, winding through more lush countryside dotted with sheep and crisscrossed by neat stone walls. I will never get tired of those walls! Windermere is the largest town in the area, a popular Victorian-era resort known as the home of Beatrix Potter. It seemed a bit dreary in the rain and not very charming. Ambleside is smaller, with a better choice of restaurants and a nice little shopping district. We also passed Rydal Mount, home of the poet William Wordsworth from 1813 until his death in 1850.

Just outside of Grasmere, we found Banerigg Guest House a large, early-20^th-century family home situated directly across the road from Grasmere Lake (photo, right). Actually we passed right by it the first time because it is nestled in the trees and is hard to spot until you are right on top of it. We pulled into the gate and parked in front of the house, where we were greeted by Angela, one of the owners. She showed us upstairs to our room on what I have to call the second-and-a-half floor, as our door was located on a landing between the second and third floors. It is an ample room (one of six) on the back of the house with a double and a twin bed, plenty of storage space, and a good-sized bathroom lit by a large skylight. The only down side is that it only has a bathtub with no showerhead attachment, but Angela showed us the shared shower on the second floor that we were welcome to use. There were several other guests in the house, including a couple of people who were obviously regular visitors - Angela introduced them like old friends.

We settled into our room and then decided to walk (despite the stubborn rain, which refused to let up!) into Grasmere for dinner, about three-quarters of a mile down the road. It was a pleasant walk except we had to step back every time a car came speeding by to avoid getting drenched by road spray. We passed an Italian restaurant that Angela had recommended, but decided to check out more of the town first before deciding where to eat.

Grasmere is a pretty little village with winding streets lined with quaint stone cottages and a variety of small inns and hotels, intermixed with craft and curio shops. We crossed an arched stone bridge (photo, right) over the rushing river and discovered the churchyard where Wordsworth and his family are buried, in the shade of a yew tree planted by the poet. We probably should have gone back to the Italian place, but we ended up eating at The Rowan Tree, which was completely empty when we arrived at 7 p.m. (on a Saturday night no less!). I had goat cheese and tomato cannelloni with a generous side salad and John had a tuna, red onion, and olive pizza. The meal was so-so but the homemade sticky toffee pudding with vanilla ice cream that we had for dessert was to die for! We finished with coffee and tea, all of which set us back £50 – which doesn’t sound so bad until you realize it converts to $100. That’s England for you!

We wandered around the village some more after dinner (photo, right). The rain had lessened up a bit and for a while I thought it was actually going to clear up (we could even see the tops of the surrounding hills). I couldn’t get over how lush and green the landscape was – and there were more gorgeous hydrangeas everywhere (one of my favorite flowers). On our way back to the hotel we saw a blue sheep. Well, it was gray, but it had a definite blue tinge to it. Now that we’ve seen so many sheep, we’ve realized that while the lambs are very cute, full-grown sheep are actually quite ugly. They also spraypaint the sheep with fluorescent pink and blue markings, which sort of takes away from the timeless pastoral look. We stopped on the shore of Grasmere Lake to watch a lone white swan float by. Within a few minutes the clouds had descended again, and we walked in a steady rain back to the house.

27 June: From Cornwall to Wales

John had the Bottreaux’s English breakfast again and I had scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and chives. Our hostess came over to greet us – after talking to all of the other guests first, just like yesterday. I felt sort of second-class. She seemed nice enough, although they never did turn on the heat. John loaded up the car while I checked out and chatted with the hostess. For some reason we got on the topic of Africa because she used to live in South Africa.

Today’s route was slated to take us back through northern Cornwall to Exeter and northeast along the Bristol Channel. We planned to take a short detour to Glastonbury to visit the famous Tor and then continue on past Bristol, across the channel, and into Wales. We had reservations this evening (including dinner) at a bed & breakfast called Brynhir Farm near Llandrindod Wells in central Wales. Susie said the drive would take about four hours.

We followed the narrow winding roads back through Cornwall and I was reminded of a comment I read somewhere expressing frustration about the hedges being so high here. All we ever seemed to see were masses of tangled green shrubs, with glimpses of rolling hills (dotted with sheep, of course) flashing by through the occasional break in the hedge. Of course John’s eyes were always on the road, anticipating the next car to come speeding around the bend. English drivers don’t seem to expect an oversized German sedan to be coming at them and they often barely give us enough room to squeeze by. (I’m laughing as I write this since an E-Class is considered a mid-size sedan in the U.S.)

We soon hooked up with the welcoming broad swath of the M5 motorway and made good time through the rolling countryside to Glastonbury. Susie guided us into town and, amazingly, even knew exactly where we should park, as you cannot actually drive to Glastonbury Tor. The parking lot was right next to Glastonbury Abbey, site of the first Christian settlement in England, and, according to legend, where Joseph of Arimathea brought the Holy Grail and founded a monastery in the 1^st century. We could see bits of the ruined Abbey over the high stone wall, and I hoped that we could take a peek inside (after all, it is rumored to be the site where King Arthur and Guinevere were buried), but our primary goal was the Tor, long-revered as the heart of the mystical realm of Avalon.

We decided to get something for lunch first since it was almost 1:00. The town – at least what we could see of it – looked like your normal sort of college hangout, despite Glastonbury being a major draw for druids, hippies, and various other New Agers attracted to its mystical past. We walked down the street a ways (figuring it was probably a good idea to put a little distance between us and the tour bus throngs descending on the Abbey) and ducked into a cozy pub with red velour seats and red curtains and a very frazzled bleached-blonde barmaid. We ordered a couple of toasted baguette sandwiches and sodas. While we waited for our lunch to arrive, we watched with mild amusement as the barmaid told some teenagers of uncertain origin to turn down the music that they were blasting on their cell phones. They pretended not to understand English but did what she asked and left soon after. We gobbled down our sandwiches and then set off on our jaunt to Glastonbury Tor.

We walked about a mile through town, past a park, and then along a trail through a cow pasture to the base of the Tor. It sprinkled on and off but fortunately never turned into a serious downpour. The dirt path angled steeply upwards and we could see the massive dark tower looming on the hill above us (photo, above). When we arrived at the top we had the place completely to ourselves, although there was plenty of evidence of past visitors of the bovine variety – evidence splattered rather unceremoniously all over the base of the tower. The striking square edifice is all that remains of St. Michael’s Church, which collapsed in1271 (photo, right). From the open archways at the base of the tower we had magnificent views of the surrounding countryside, out across the red-brick houses of Glastonbury and the vivid green fields of the so-called Vale of Avalon (photo, below). A circular stone slab set into the ground nearby pointed out nearby landmarks. We found Cadbury Castle, one of several contenders for the site of King Arthur’s Camelot, about 13 miles distant. Or rather, I think I identified a dark green, flat-topped hill as the location of Cadbury Castle.

We took our pictures and then hiked back down the hill in a light rain. We peeked in the entrance to Glastonbury Abbey but didn’t have time for a visit (it would have cost £18) which was too bad, because the ruins looked very atmospheric in the rain. (The abbey was completed in 1524 but destroyed in 1539 when Henry VIII called for the dissolution of the monasteries.) We looked around the gift shop instead and bought a fridge magnet with the Wilkinson family crest (Wilkinson being John’s grandmother’s maiden name).

Then it was back in the car, a quick stop for gas, and onwards to Wales. I called Brynhir Farm on my cell phone to tell them when we would arrive; Mrs. Nixon said she had to attend an important meeting in town and was leaving dinner in the hands of her husband (she actually said, “I think everything is under control!”). We bypassed Bristol and headed across the very new, very modern Severn Bridge (whopping £5,10 toll!) into Wales. We were greeted by a “Welcome to Wales” sign printed in English and in Welsh, and I was pleased to see that all of the road signs are printed in both languages, with Welsh on top. On the down side, this meant that my navigational instructions became completely incomprehensible as I tried in vain to pronounce the jumbles of consonants that pepper the Welsh language.

Near Cardiff we left the M4 and headed north on winding roads through more rolling green countryside that gradually became more rugged and barren. I am beginning to understand why people are always joking about how many sheep there are in the U.K. There are a few cows, too – I spotted my first Highland cows, the cute ones with blonde bangs and long curved horns. We made our way through a string of quaint little towns until we finally reached the tiny hamlet of Howey, just south of Llandrindod Wells, where, after one wrong turn, we found Chapel Road and followed the signs to Brynhir Farm. The road became a narrow one-lane track with high hedges on either side, and we just hoped that no one would come at us from the other direction because there was nowhere to pull over. We passed several other B&Bs and farmsteads and the road finally ended at the entrance to Brynhir Farm (photo, right). It was pretty funny to see where the mapmakers had stopped – we drove right off the end of the white line on the navi’s display, our little arrow indicator heading into a blank sea of gray on the screen.

We parked in front of a rambling white stone farmhouse (photo, right), where we were greeted by a scruffy but friendly Border Collie. As we rooted through our stuff in the trunk, a grizzled man in mud-covered work clothes came out of a nearby barn carrying a bucket. He apologized for his appearance, saying he was dealing with a difficult birth (a cow, I assume, from the heart-rending lowing coming from the barn), and asked if we wouldn’t mind showing ourselves to our room. He gave us directions through the house and there was also a note from his wife for us on the door. Our room was on the first floor at the far end of the house, through two small parlors filled with frilly antiques. We were surprised to open the door and find twin beds on opposite sides of the room (I had simply requested a double), with a sink in one corner and a small but serviceable bathroom with shower. In one of the parlors there was a guestbook, which I peeked at; no American guests had signed it since last September. After we’d settled in, I decided to take a little walk before dinner. As soon as I started down the road, my friend the Border Collie jumped up and led the way. I got the feeling he had done this before. I took a few pictures of the scenery and then returned to the house. On my way inside I met an elderly lady who was seated at the desk in one of the parlors. She told me she was here with two friends on a walking holiday (apparently a very popular pastime for Brits). We chatted for a bit about the weather, as there has been some serious flooding elsewhere in Wales and England over the past few days.

Dinner was served promptly at 7:00 p.m. We were seated at a table in front of the stone fireplace, which was large enough for five people to stand up inside of it (photo, right). The woman from the parlor was there with her friends, along with another older couple. Dinner was efficiently served by a young woman dressed in a prim black skirt and white apron. It was a rather interesting meal. First we had a piece of honeydew melon garnished with an orange slice and a strawberry. The main course consisted of a platter of cold ham, accompanied by individual dishes of potatoes, rice and peas, pickled beets, halved hard-boiled eggs with mayonnaise, an iceburg lettuce salad, and bread and butter. The potatoes were the only thing served warm. In some ways it reminded me of the simple dinners we would eat on the farm in France when my brother and I stayed with the Nuttens in high school. Lunch was usually served hot and dinner was the leftovers, served cold…typical farm fare, I suppose. I saw that the other couple had a bottle of wine so I asked the young woman if they sold wine. She asked us if we wanted white or red. I asked for a medium white, and we got a very nice Riesling – from Bernkastel-Keus in the Mosel Valley, of course!

The best part of dinner was dessert – a fabulous raspberry custard topped with a thick layer of the richest cream I’ve ever tasted – homemade, I reckon. We finished with tea and coffee and then took a nice late-evening stroll down the lane. We stopped to watch a couple of horses grazing in a pasture (photo, right), but they wouldn’t come very close – apparently they didn’t smell any apples or carrots on us. We went on down the road until we reached a herd of plaintively bleating sheep, several of whom were sticking their heads through the fence to munch on the tender leaves of the hedge (you know what they say – the grass is always greener…). Finally we turned around and headed back to the farmhouse, marveling at this little idyllic corner of the world that we had discovered in central Wales.

26 June: Magical, Mystical Tintagel

The first thing I did when I woke up this morning was look out the window. It was raining. Again. What a surprise.

The mention of a “full English breakfast” in every one of our hotel reservations is apparently not a misnomer. Once again we were treated to eggs made to order, sausage, bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes, and toast. Oh, the calories!! The only variables seem to be the cereal selection and the fruit, which in this case was stewed prunes. A woman we hadn’t seen before came in and chatted gaily with all of the other guests before coming to greet us, rather perfunctorily might I add. I got the feeling that the others were repeat customers at the hotel, but it was still a little off-putting.

With just one day to spend in Cornwall, I had a single destination in mind: Tintagel, legendary birthplace of King Arthur, located about eight miles down the rocky, surf-battered coast from Boscastle. I have always pictured Tintagel as Marion Zimmer Bradley described it in The Mists of Avalon: an impenetrable iron-gray fortress rising majestically from its rocky foundations, separated from the mainland by a narrow stone causeway, its lonely battlements ravaged by the wind and waves, its occupants huddled in front of a blazing hearth to ward off the perpetual chill of the sea. I would like to tell you that this grand vision still exists in all of its mystical glory on the northern shore of Cornwall, but alas, the mighty castle has been reduced to a few ruined walls and gates, pockmarked here and there by jagged windows opening their blind eyes to the crashing surf below. And yet, it seems that history is alive and well on this windswept promontory at the end of the world…

If Arthur really existed at all, he most likely lived in a wood-framed, thatch-roofed hall whose 6^th-century remains have long since rotted away. The first person to place Arthur in the context of Tintagel was Nennius, a 9^th-century cleric, who, struggling to fill a blank spot in the pages of history following the departure of the Romans from England, knitted together the story of a great Christian war leader who successfully warded off the invading pagan Saxons in a series of battles around 500 A.D. This representation of Arthur might have long since faded into the annals of the past were it not for the creative mind of one Geoffrey of Monmouth, who apparently decided that the Kings of England needed an ancestor of whom they could be proud. He made Arthur out to be a powerful king who had defeated a Roman Emperor and conquered most of Western Europe. Arthur was eventually wounded in battle and spirited away to the Isle of Avalon, from which, Geoffery hinted, the great king might one day return to lead the people of England to peace and prosperity.

It was quite easy for medieval French poets and storytellers to pick up the now-popular tale, embellishing it with their own current ideals of noble knights, chivalry, and courtly love. Soon the Knights of the Round Table and the colorful personas of Guinevere, Lancelot, Merlin and the Lady of the Lake were added to the cast of characters. With the coming of the Crusades, Arthur and his knights were given a new mission – the quest for the Holy Grail. And so, over the centuries, the legend of King Arthur morphed and evolved to suit the needs and desires of the day. The story might have died out were it not for The Idylls of the King, a narrative poem written by Alfred, Lord Tennyson in the 1860s, introducing a whole new audience to the legendary Arthur. In the end, the question of whether Arthur really existed is largely irrelevant in the face of the influence his story has had – and continues to have – on countless generations. The themes of courage and cowardice, love and hate, virtue and sin are timeless, and will live on in our collective consciousness for centuries to come.

Which brings us back to Tintagel, and why this place continues to draw so many visitors year after year. Curiously, one solid piece of evidence has been uncovered to link Arthur to this mysterious spot. In 1998, an archaeological team turned over a slab of stone covering a 6^th-century drain, revealing a portion of an inscription containing the name ARTOGNOV. Someone named Artognou built something here and wanted people to know about it. A fire in 1983 burned off the peaty topsoil of Tintagel’s island to reveal the foundations of dozens of small buildings dating to the 5^th and 6^th centuries – Arthur’s time. And someone wealthy enough to import luxury goods from Spain, North Africa and Greece apparently lived here, because shards of wine jars and other pottery vessels originating from those distant locales have been found in great quantities all over the island. Obviously Tintagel still holds many secrets beneath its slate-covered surface.

What we do know is that a 13^th-century Earl of Cornwall by the name of Richard, brother of King Henry III, took it upon himself to rebuild the remote and strategically-unimportant fortress at Tintagel (from Din Tagell, meaning Fortress of the Narrow Entrance). This was either a purely romantic gesture or a savvy political move to strengthen Earl Richard’s self-promotion as a successor to the legendary King Arthur and protector of Cornwall. Whatever his motivations, the fortress never served much purpose and soon fell into ruin, the grassy promontory serving as a sheep pasture until it was rediscovered by 19^th-century romanticists and turned into the Arthurian tourist attraction we were heading off to visit today.

We found the small village of Tintagel (which changed its name from Travena to Tintagel in 1900 to profit off the famous castle) to be busy with tourists at 10 a.m. on this breezy Tuesday morning. The streets were lined with shops selling plastic swords and mood crystals, and the huge bulk of the ugly Camelot Hotel (originally built as a railway terminus hotel, except that the railway was never built) marred the otherwise tranquil view out to the sea. We found a gravel lot in the middle of town where we paid £1 to park all day and set off down the steep path to the castle. Our first glimpse of the fortress consisted of a jagged span of wall rising from the grassy promontory, the man-made construction barely distinguishable from the surrounding outcroppings of layered slate. We walked around a bend in the trail and more of the ruins came into view above us. We used our English Heritage pass to get in (saving us £9) and watched the short film about “uncovering Arthur,” which basically said that the whole legend is a “bunch of hooey” (John’s words, not mine).

Below us lay a short stretch of sandy beach, where ships once landed to load and unload goods. A zigzagging set of stairs led us to a wooden footbridge, which crosses the narrow span of rock linking Tintagel to the mainland. The fortress is split into two main sections – two large courtyards on the mainland, set high up on a cliff to our left, and the island courtyard nestled in a sheltered hollow on our right. We decided to head to the island first. We climbed the steep trail along a battlement wall, a 19^th-century construction that replaced a medieval section that fell into the sea (probably foretelling the eventual fate of the rest of the island courtyard as the sea pounds inevitably away at its base), and passed through an archway into the remains of the 13^th-century courtyard, where Earl Richard’s Great Hall once stood. All that remains is a romantically ruined section of stair-stepped battlement (photo, above) and the rough outline of several rooms. The buildings were all constructed of local slate, set in thin layers much like the geologic formations from which they came, so the walls look like they grew organically, right out of the ground. From here we looked through empty windows at the dramatic Cornish coastline stretching away to the north (photo, above). It looked very much like a stormy day on the Mendocino coast of northern California, complete with low threatening clouds and a chilling wind. My boots were still wet from yesterday so I was stamping my feet and running around trying to warm up.

Despite the crowds in town, we soon left most of the visitors behind as we set out to explore the island. Narrow trails led us from one ruined structure to the next, including the foundations of a tiny chapel and the rectangular outline of what is believed to have been the castle garden (photo, above). The island was carpeted with grasses and wildflowers, including tall spikes of bright pink foxglove, which really should be the national flower of England, it is so common. The island flattens out on top, where a shallow depression in the rock forms a water catchment and you can crawl through a short, triangular tunnel carved out of the rock, which possibly served as a food larder for the castle, cooled by the sea breezes. As we scrambled about on the slate outcroppings, the clouds began to disperse and patches of blue sky appeared to compete with the brilliant aquamarine of the ocean. We circled the entire island, eventually coming back to the landward side, where we had a lovely view across the narrow inlet to the squat stone tower of Tintagel’s parish church of St. Materiana (photo, right).

We crossed the bridge back to the mainland and toured the two ruined courtyards on that side (seen in photo at right, with the town of Tintagel in the background), which offer good views back to the island fortress. From here you can really see why they call it an island, though it is just barely connected to the mainland (photo, below). Then we hiked along the coastal trail to the 11^th-century parish church, sitting all alone on the bluff, surrounded by an ancient graveyard (photo, below). The church was likely built on the site of a Celtic oratory and later replaced by a Saxon building. The oldest portion of the church is the wall and porch on the north side, dating to 1080. Inside, there is a lovely timber-framed ceiling, a Norman font, and various medieval and modern additions. The South Transept features a stone bench running around the edge dating to the 15^th century, when people used to stand through the services. Only the elderly and infirm were allowed to sit (“the weakest goes to the wall”). The little pamphlet about the church mentions a famous altercation between Thomas Hardy and the Vicar that took place here in 1916, but apparently the visitor is supposed to know the details already, as no further information is provided. The church registers date back to 1546, and many of the lichen-encrusted headstones in the graveyard looked like they could be that old, time and weather having long since worn away the inscriptions. We wandered through the graveyard and then back to town on a narrow country lane. On our way back to the car we passed the 14^th-century Old Post Office with its undulating slate tile roof.

It was now early afternoon and we decided to head down the coast a few miles to the fishing village of Port Isaac. Susie kept trying to send us on impossibly narrow roads, so I took over and tried to keep us on roads that pretended to be two lanes wide. It didn’t help that it seems to be perfectly legal in England to park facing the wrong way (so it looks like a car is coming right at you in your lane) and block half the road. We started to feel like we had the largest car in England. It also didn’t help that there are no shoulders to speak of, and most of the roads are fenced in on either side by five-foot hedges, so you can’t see what’s coming around the bend.

Port Isaac is described in my Fodor’s guide as a cluster of cottages that “tumbles precipitously down the cliff” but you wouldn’t know it unless you parked in the lot above the village, as we did, and walked down, because the village is literally invisible from the road above. We didn’t want to risk any more parking tickets so we put a full four hours on the meter, to the tune of £2,70. I returned to the car and put the ticket on the dashboard. To my dismay, as I exited the car, a gust of wind blew the ticket down into the crack between the windshield and the dashboard. We spent several long minutes trying to extract the ticket using John’s mini Swiss Army knife, but to no avail. Finally I went and bought another ticket, this time only for two hours because I was running short on change. I came back and John was still trying to get the other ticket out. I thought it was gone for good but John swore that he could see the “reflection” of the ticket in the windshield, just a few inches out of reach. I told him he was seeing things. Then I took off my (polarized) sunglasses and realized that you could actually see the ticket. I finally used the pamphlet from the Tintagel chapel to carefully ease the ticket out of the crevice. Now we had two parking tickets with six hours of time between them. I walked back to the machine, certain that I could find someone to buy the ticket off of me. A couple of minutes later an English guy walked up and I offered him my ticket, showing him that it was good for another two hours. I said I would take a pound for it but he insisted on giving me the whole £1,50 (don’t laugh – that’s $3!).

After this minor drama, we set off towards the village on the coastal trail. Port Isaac is indeed a lovely little hamlet of whitewashed stone houses perched around a narrow harbor dotted with colorful fishing boats. There are a few touristy shops, art galleries, pubs, and little cafés offering simple meals and afternoon tea. There were lots of little cottages for rent and I imagined that this would be a nice place to spend a few days, either to explore Cornwall or just sit and watch the waves roll in. We wandered the narrow streets for a while admiring the quaint houses and gardens (photo, right), peeked into an art gallery inhabiting an old church, and then hiked up the other side of the valley to get a spectacular view of the village and harbor (photo, below). We continued up the narrow trail, which dumped us into a sheep pasture, and walked out to the next point, where we could see all the way back to Tintagel’s island. We returned to town by the same route and decided to stop at the bar at the Slipway Hotel (a place I had researched staying at before settling on the Bottreaux), where we indulged in Cornish cream tea and scones slathered with strawberry preserves and clotted cream. John said he felt a heart attack coming on. Granted the clotted cream came in store-bought plastic tubs, but it was still delicious! We stopped in at a few galleries on the way back to the car but didn’t see anything that really attracted us.

We drove back to Boscastle, left our car at the hotel, and then took a long walk through the village. A steep road leads straight down the hill from the hotel, lined with charming stone and white-washed houses, each with its own little garden out front (photo. The hydrangeas and roses were in full bloom, splashing the subdued gray and white houses with bright pinks and reds. A plush gray cat sat on a wall and stared at us as we walked past. We hiked up a very steep hill to the Forabury parish church, which we could see from our hotel window. The church was already locked up for the night but we wandered around the graveyard and then out to the coastal trail. (If I haven’t mentioned it before, a public trail runs all along the spectacular Cornwall coastline.) We headed out to a funny little white building on the nearest bluff, which turned out to be the Willapark Lookout – originally built as a summer house in the early 1800s by a local landowner and later used as a Coast Guard lookout station. From this windy vantage point we had a gorgeous sweeping view over the Cornish countryside: emerald-green fields bordered neatly by dark hedgerows, like a rich green plaid blanket spread over the hills (photo, right). Along the rocky cliffs we made out the remants of stone walls and buildings – more mysterious ruins from the distant past.

I recognized the entrance to Boscastle harbor off to our right so we decided to hike down that way and come back up through the town on the inland side. The harbor was amazing – a narrow, sinuous channel cutting deep through layers and layers of slate (photo, below). We found it hard to believe that boats could navigate the channel in the crashing surf. As we walked up to the village we could see remnants of the raging flood that nearly destroyed Boscastle in 2004. They were in the process of tearing down the historic stone bridge over the river to be replaced by a new one for flood control purposes. We passed the Wellington Hotel, which I had also looked into staying at. It seemed a little touristy, but charming. We hiked all the way back up the hill to the hotel, at which point we agreed that we had definitely gotten our share of exercise today.

We had an hour to shower and change before dinner in the Bottreaux’s restaurant. There was just one young woman serving the ten or so tables (we were one of just three or four parties). She was very sweet, although rather inappropriately dressed in a cropped white t-shirt and skin-tight low-riding black pants, baring about three inches of flesh above the lacy trim of her bright green underwear. Wowsers! We both ordered from the 3-course menu for £28 and an Australian Chardonnay called Apple Hill. John had the smoked salmon, blini, and caviar for appetizer (the blini was fluffy and piping hot), followed by a big slab of turbot with what I identified as pickerel weed (“poor man’s asparagus”) and a lemon Hollandaise sauce. John described his meal as “okay.” My appetizer and entrée were excellent: seared sashimi tuna with soy sauce and sesame seeds on a bed of pickled bok choy, followed by fillet of bream with panko-coated fried eggplant and tempura-battered zucchini flower with a bouillabaisse sauce. For dessert we both had the chocolate and orange tart (excellent except for the crust, which was a bit underdone) with delicious homemade lemon and thyme ice cream.

I asked our waitress about getting a picnic lunch to take with us tomorrow, as this was listed as an option in the hotel guide. She came back and said that they needed more advance notice, which was a bit frustrating because it just said in the guide to order lunch the night before. My take on the Bottreaux is that it is is trying really hard to be top-notch, but it’s still a little rough around the edges.