September 6, 2015 - Padstow to Land’s End to Oxford

We woke to bright, sunny skies and beautiful temperatures – a great start to a full day! Tobey and I walked across the street from the hotel to see the beach. When we arrived last night there were several people walking back to their cars wearing wetsuits, carrying their surfboards so we wanted to check it out. This morning the tide was out, but there were quite a few people walking on the beach.

Our first stop today was Land’s End – about 1-1/2 hours away, and the westernmost point of Cornwall. There are miles of walks you can take along the cliffs with spectacular views.
We wandered along several of the paths and stopped to see the views across the Atlantic. From one point we could look back and see the hotel and restaurant near the carpark.

There have been over 130 recorded shipwrecks around the Land’s End, as well as countless more unrecorded. Now, Longships Lighthouse at Land’s End forms one point of an important protective triangle - Longships Lighthouse, Wolf Rock Lighthouse and the Lizard Lighthouse collectively create one of the best lit waterways in the British Isles.

We were three of the over 400,000 visitors, from all over the globe, who traveled to Land’s End this year! There is a signpost showing the distance to New York – we are only 3147 miles away!

From Land’s End we headed back east about 20 miles to Marazion so we could tour St. Michael’s Mount. The castle has changed ownership over the years from Bronze age settlers, monks, pilgrims and soldiers. The St. Aubyn family has lived on the Mount since the 17th Century!

At low tide, there is a causeway which allows you to walk out to the island. When we arrived, we had to take one of the boat shuttles out to the island – $2GPB per person – one way! After arriving at the island, we purchased our admission tickets then started the long climb to the castle entrance at the top of the hill!

We were able to tour several of the rooms within the castle (where the family still lives today!) and see the many collections of art, books, and maps.

From the terraces, we were able to look down at the private gardens and also see the pillboxes used by the military during the war. They are well camouflaged with the grass growing on top of them.

There is also a medieval church with nave and central tower dedicated to St. Michael, which is still used for Sunday services within the castle. It was first built in 1135, then rebuilt in the late 14th century.

In addition to the stained glass in the church, the family has a large collection of other pieces in the Chevy Chase. The Chevy Chase was the refectory for the priory and actually was used as the main dining room for the family until the 1950s.

Before heading back down the hill to the boat ramps, we enjoyed seeing the route the causeway takes from the mainland. It was still underwater, so we took the boat back!
On our walk back down the hill we took time to find the “Giant’s Heart”, one of the small, dark, cobblestones in the pathway.

I also stopped several times to admire the beautiful flowers on the island. I know I will have to research them further, but I doubt they will grow in our dry, Colorado climate!

Back in Marazion we walked by this skinny building which I remembered from my trip here in 1997! It’s now a little café.

We had a lovely day, but my legs were tired and it is a long drive back to Oxford, so we hit the road. It was a beautiful drive back through the countryside of Cornwall. All of the farms look so neat and tidy – and we loved the hedgerow fences.

We were also amazed at how many solar farms and wind turbines are in the area. I had to chuckle as I listened to my two engineers trying to calculate the speed at which the turbine blades were moving! I am glad their educations paid off.

We arrived back in Oxford about 7:30 and fixed dinner and relaxed. Tyler goes back to work tomorrow and Tobey and I will decide what other sights to see.

September 5, 2015 - Oxford to Padstow

Around 9 this morning we took off for Cornwall with Tyler behind the wheel. Our first stop was Stonehenge, the ancient stone circle. The circle was constructed between 3000 and 1600 years ago.

The last time I visited Stonehenge was in 1997 when I traveled with my mom and sister. On that visit, there was no visitors center and it was raining so hard that we did the 15-minute trot around the stones under umbrellas! Today, it was overcast, chilly, and very windy, but there was no rain! We spent close to an hour going around the stone circle, listening to the audio tour that we downloaded to Tobey’s phone. Yahoo. There is also a very well-done Visitors Center at the site now, where Tobey and I spent time seeing all the displays.

It was amazing to see how many burial mounds like the humps in the picture below surround the area near Stonehenge.




After our visit to Stonehenge we stopped at a “Little Chef” restaurant in one of the “Service” areas, similar to our truck stops. I would not recommend eating at them – the food is adequate at best, the prices high, and the service slow! Oh well, an hour later we were on our way!

Next stop was Tintagel Castle situated on the northern coast of Cornwall and thought to be the place where King Arthur was conceived. Richard, the Earl of Cornwall, selected this site to build his castle in the 1230s.

As we started our climb to the island ruins, we passed the stairs down to the beach and Merlin’s Cave. We saved the walk to the cave until the end of our tour.



We had the steep climb across the bridge to see the island courtyard and rocky cliff of Tintagel.

From the top of the island we could look across to the mainland and see the upper mainland ruins. Tobey and Tyler did that climb to see those ruins while I waited at the bottom.

This is part of the Island Courtyard and Great Hall. It was really fun to look out over the water and imagine life in the 1200s here!


We continued to explore the island and wandered out along the rocky cliffs. It was so windy I could imagine taking flight if we held our coats open!



It was fun to see sheep grazing along the cliffs on the island! When Tobey and Tyler reached the mainland courtyard, they were able to look back at the island and see the Great Hall. The English Heritage Trust is continually working on restoring these sites and you can see the chain mesh holding rocks in place along the cliffs.
The ruins on the mainland side show the approach to the castle.

After exploring the island and the mainland castle, we did go down to the beach and check out Merlin’s Cave. It was pretty cool and went all the way through to the other side of the island. We stopped at the tide pool before heading back.

The walk from town to the castle is 660 meters – down a pretty steep hill on your way to the castle, so it seems even worse on the uphill on the way out! If you want to catch a ride in one of the Land Rovers, they charge $2GPB per person – each way! We walked as we are all in pretty good shape.

There is a beautiful stream that follows the trek and it cascades into the bay at the bottom.

It was close to 6 by the time we got back to town and we spotted a few of the local citizens out for an evening walk!

We are staying in Padstow at the Harlyn Inn tonight. No internet service, even though it was advertised. Oh well! Tomorrow we will head to Land’s End and explore a few of the little towns nearby before heading back to Oxford.

September 4, 2015 - Oxford, England

Well, there was a change of plans today and Tobey ended up not going with Tyler to Birmingham.

I did go for a long (almost 4 miles) walk today in search of fabric shops in Oxford! I found two online that seemed to be in walking distance. Darn it & Stitch Haberdashery and Sewing is located in City Center near the Town Hall. It was a tiny little shop run by a lovely woman from Japan. I had fun chatting with her and ended up buying 3-fat quarters (if you are a quilter, you know what I am talking about!). The prices for quilting cotton fabric are extremely high for fabric here – almost 17GBP/meter – about $26USD per yard!! Tobey would take my sewing machine away if I paid that much in the States! After tucking my tiny purchase into my backpack I continued on to the Bombay Emporium. My journey took me past Christ Church and Merton College again. I don’t think I could ever get tired of looking at these beautiful buildings! When I got to High Street I turned right and crossed the bridge over the River Cherwell where you can rent “punting boats.” They are like long pontoon boats and a guide stands in the back and poles along the river while you paddle. Business was slow today!

I should have considered the name of the shop before making that trek – most of the fabrics they had were silks and beaded. It was fun to see, but nothing I wanted to buy so I started home.

After lunch, Tobey and I walked to the Oxford University Museum of Natural History and the Pitt Rivers Museum. The museum was founded in 1860 as the center for scientific study at the University of Oxford. Now, the museum offers free admission and has an incredible collection.

We spent over an hour browsing through the displays on the main floor. It is a very family-friendly place and everything was well-signed.At the back of the exhibition hall is the entrance to the Pitt River Museum which houses some of the most interesting collections of anthropology and archaeology in the world. We barely saw the first level of the Pitt Rivers Museum which has over 500,000 pieces in its collections!




We were overwhelmed with the variety and how many items were displayed from around the world. We both commented that if we lived here we would come back over and over and probably never see it all!

We headed back to the apartment around 4pm, but had to stop at Mumu's Gelateria Café on our way home. Tyler said it was Katie’s favorite place for ice cream – and it was wonderful!!! We had a scoop of peanutella and one of coconut – a yummy combination that gave me enough energy to complete the walk home!

Tyler took us by the Hertford Bridge, popularly known as the Bridge of Sighs. It is a skyway joining two parts of Hertford College over New College Lane in Oxford. It was built in 1914 and there is no water under the bridge, like its namesake in Venice!
We all went to Turf Tavern on the east end of City Center for dinner. There is no way we could have found it on our own – we went through a maze of alleyways to get there, but it was worth it. The food was reasonably priced and good. Another good day!

Tomorrow the three of us are heading out to Cornwall for the weekend, hoping to see Tintagel Castle – where the legend of King Arthur is supposed to have begun!

September 3, 2015 - Oxford, England

Today Tobey and I took “Walk 10 – The Castle to the Cemetery,” with a few modifications. The walk took us through the Medieval Jewish Quarter of Oxford. We walked to City Center and headed to the Oxford Castle. The first building we came upon was not the castle at all, but the County Council Building! The castle is just to the north and west of this building.

We entered through the courtyard and bought tickets for the guided tour of the Castle and Tower.

The guide, dressed as a prisoner from the 1700s, gave a fun and informative tour and history of the castle which dates back o 1071AD when William the Conqueror took control of England after his victory at the Battle of Hastings. The initial castle was simply an earthwork mound which was surrounded by a wooden palisade. The motte rose over 60 feet.

The most dramatic moment in the military history of Oxford Castle came in 1142, at the height of the Civil War between King Stephen and Matilda. Matilda was nominated by her father, King Henry 1, as the heir to the throne of England, but in 1135, Stephen of Blois, her cousin, claimed that his uncle had changed his mind on his deathbed, naming him heir instead. Matilda’s army was besieged within the castle for nearly three weeks, and it seemed that surrender was the only choice as they ran short of supplies. However, in a scene that rivals the movies, Matilda was lowered over the castle walls in the dead of night, and wrapped in a white cloak as camouflage against the swirling snow, she ice skated through the king's army camp and across the frozen Thames to safety. Matilda was eventually captured and held prisoner at Oxford Castle. In 1153, Stephen agreed to the Treaty of Westminster with Matilda's son Henry of Anjou. This stated that Stephen should remain king for life (in the event this was less than one more year) and then Henry should succeed him. Stephen died in 1154 (Natural causes? Who knows?) and Henry was crowned King Henry I.

Our tour took us up the Saxon St. George’s Tower - 100+ circular stairway steps to see beautiful views of the city.

On the left in the picture above, you can see the original “motte” or mound where the wooden palisade was constructed.

After the tower, we descended underground into the 900 year old crypt, the only surviving remains of St. George’s Chapel. It is said this is where Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote the Legends of King Arthur!

Most of the castle was destroyed in the 1640s, during the English Civil War, and by the 18th century the remaining buildings became Oxford's local prison. A new prison complex was built on the site from 1785 and operated until 1996!

Most of the prison area has been redeveloped into a luxury hotel!

We didn’t go in to check it out, but our guide said the rooms still use the same prison doors into the “cells!”

Our walking tour took us past several buildings we have already seen, but it was fun to read the historic descriptions in the guide book. The large stone building below is the Oxford Town Hall which also houses the Oxford Museum.

On the top of the Town Hall building is a golden oxen weathervane. In the 13th century it was supposed to have belonged to a wealthy Jewish man named David of Oxford. The Jewish history is long and complicated, but it now rests atop Town Hall!

Further down the street we stopped into Alice’s Shop. It is definitely a tourist stop, but is supposedly where Alice Liddel loved to buy her sweets. The shop (and Alice) were the inspiration for the Old Sheep Shop in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass. Every item for sale is related to the Adventures of Alice in Wonderland ! I am happy to report that I only purchased one postcard.

After escaping an afternoon shower, we wandered back through the Covered Market and made our way to a downtown grocery to pick up a few items before heading back to Tyler’s.

After Tyler returned from Birmingham, we went out to Zheng Restaurant for dinner. It is just around the corner and we were lucky to get in since you normally need reservations at almost any restaurant in the evening! It was an interesting menu with Malaysian, Singaporean, and a variety of Chinese dishes. We had vegetarian spring rolls, fried rice, chicken satay with peppers and onions, Nasa Pattaya (fried rice with prawns wrapped in a egg), and Miao clay pot chicken. Everything was delicious and more than we could finish!

Tomorrow Tobey is going with Tyler back to Birmingham – another early morning start! I think I will stay in Oxford and go poke around some of the shops in City Center.