It was quite delightful, although closer to lunch time many of the car parks were full as people were taking short strolls to the tops of various nearby tors. After checking out, we braved the chill to take a look at the various swimming & diving spots.Īlthough we had been planning to head back to the north coast to visit Padstowe etc, we decided that it would be better to explore Dartmoor.
But by the time we were at our table, all we could see was the tip of its funnel gliding past - accompanied by several blasts on the foghorn. While waiting to be seated at our table, we saw a big ship heading towards the harbour. But during breakfast, we discovered that we were being pea-souped in the fog. Today, Sunday, we tried to explore the Plymouth shoreline. We managed to visit the hotel's pool and gym to try to prepare ourselves for the next day's prandial onslaught. It was a delightful little place, and we had a nice little stroll along the foreshore, and managed to tick off another two local culinary requirements - ice creams (despite it being rather chilly) and pasties, which we ate in the car on the way back to Plymouth. There was just enough daylight, we decided, to reach St Ives, so that's where we zoomed to next. The geography was good, but there were no tea shoppes open. But the place we chose had too little "atmosphere", so we aborted and decided to head towards Lands End. We thought about trying to fulfill the "Cream Tea" mandate. We walked across, the tide being low, but the castle and grounds etc were closed, so there wasn't really much to see or do. We continued along to St Michael's Mount, at Marazion, just near Penzance. We continued along towards Lizard (pictured), the most southerly point of the country, where there were some nice cliffs and waves crashing onto rocks, etc. They are trying to establish some self contained ecosystems. Perhaps one day we'll go back and actually go inside. We were glad we drove in to see from the outside. We hadn't been sure about whether to visit Eden - having received contrary advice about suitability for children. Just when we'd decided that this was the highlight, we made it to the next village, Polperro, which was even cuter. We headed west to Cornwall, over the Torpoint ferry, along the south coast to our first stop at Looe, a picturesque little historic fishing village. We hadn't really recovered from that when value-for-money demanded a similar approach to the full breakfast on Saturday morning. We gorged on a (included in the package) 3-course dinner. This weekend, we left Malvern at around 3:45pm on Friday, and rushed through the Upton diversion (still flooded!) to the motorway, and headed to Devon for our Southwest holiday weekend.įinding the Plymouth Holiday Inn without a map wasn't too hard, but we did resort to a phone call for assistance. I enjoyed helping out with the school orchestra practice on Thursday lunchtime, and then we had Community Choir in the evening. After saying goodbye there, we explored the Transport Museum for a few hours. We've finished this weekend's tourism before I've even documented the last one! Last one was less touristy though - on Saturday we had a morning-tea visit from Rupert, Cath, Amy, Ana, and Phimi on their second last day in the UK, and then on Sunday, we caught up with them again at Coventry Cathedral - Rupert's old stomping (beating?) ground.