The scenery on the train to Penzance was interesting to look at as we made our way farther southwest from Fowey. There are beautiful old churches and also some ruins you can see near a town called Redruth; the ruins themselves are called Carn Brea, which I figured I'd be able to find out about if I searched the web for these ruins, and I was not disappointed. I was surprised that it happened a couple of times were we spotted something like ruins or something ancient but that we didn't know was there--a stone circle being one of them, but that's for an upcoming post. Anyway, I obviously couldn't stop the train there to take a look, but it was interesting just to pass them because at least if I see them and research them, then I can learn something I not only didn't know, but didn't expect to know, and learning unexpectedly always excites me.
As for Penzance, the only thing I had known about it previously was that it was a place in the title of a musical, called The Pirates of Penzance. I actually didn't know it was a real place until we came to the UK, and someone suggested going to Penzance if we go to Cornwall. Previously, I had assumed it was a fictional place for the musical, but it really is a coastal city that is known to have had pirates in the vicinity. There were two major sights we wanted to see while in Penzance, which were St. Michael's Mount and Land's End. I have enough photos and stories that each of those will be their own entries in the coming days. For now, I'll focus on Penzance itself.
We stayed in another lovely guest house; this was a little less like a B&B because there was no proprietor there to make breakfast or anything, but the room was like a small, one-bedroom apartment, with a love seat, dining table and kitchen with an oven and even an induction cooktop! The proprietor, while not providing a hot breakfast, did furnish the kitchen with dishes, cookware, and cutlery and items to wash the dishes and what not, but also a box of cereal, a bowl of fruit like a still life painting, fresh strawberries in the fridge, milk, butter, a bottle of water, bread, farm-fresh eggs from a local farm, and a tub of plain yogurt. It was very well stocked! Needless to say, we didn't need to go out to eat breakfast. It was also a blessing in disguise. I normally like to have breakfast available when I stay at a hotel because I'm hungry as soon as I wake up and don't enjoy having to forage around for a restaurant for breakfast. But one thing we learned the hard way was how difficult it is to eat at a restaurant without a reservation. Our taxi driver in Fowey mentioned that we would have a hard time finding a place to eat without a reservation due to lack of staff. I asked him if it was because of Brexit, because many Europeans that lived here and worked in food industry decided to return to their home countries just before Brexit occurred, but he said it was that plus the fact that when staff were furloughed during the pandemic, many of them ended up finding jobs in other industries, so many places are now short-staffed. We lucked out and someone took us in 10 minutes before their kitchen closed in Fowey, but we knew to make reservations as much as possible after that. However, breakfast reservations might have been more difficult, and some places seem to have reduced hours as a result as well, so I don't know how easy it would have been to find a breakfast restaurant, let alone reserve a space at one. And they don't have McDonalds, if you're in a pinch.
As we had half a day to explore Penzance after arriving, we decided to have cream tea. We were still pretty full from our full English breakfast in Fowey, so having tea with scones and clotted cream and jam seemed like a light option rather than a full lunch, although the amount of fat in our breakfast and in the clotted cream might have seemed like a recipe for a heart attack. But hey, only if you do that on a regular basis, right?
For us it was just a treat to have cream tea in Cornwall, one of the two counties (Devon being the other one) known for its clotted cream. You may not know that Devon and Cornwall also have a rivalry when it comes to how to eat scones with clotted cream and jam--does one put the jam on first or the cream? I was going to look it up on my phone as I couldn't remember, but I couldn't get any reception, and I was embarrassed to ask. But the lady at the place must have known what I was thinking, or maybe just assumed we weren't from there on account of our accents, and just as she was walking away after bringing our order to the table, she said, "Oh, and it's jam first, before you ask!" Brilliant. I should also mention that while we were walking to the restaurant where we wanted to have our cream tea, I ended up noticing some baby herring gulls on a rooftop. I had seen herring gulls appearing to be roosting on the tops of chimneys, specifically on these clay pot things that are on top of them, but I couldn't understand why they were sitting there, until I figured out that they nest on the rooftops and seem to keep their babies in these pots! I saw several gulls poking their heads down in what appeared to be an act of feeding their babies. I've never seen the likes of it! As annoying as it would be to have huge gulls nesting on the rooftop, it excited me because gulls often nest in places where most humans don't go, so my ability to see baby gulls is pretty limited. This was a rare opportunity for me to see these little gulls.
Once we enjoyed our cream tea, we walked up to Morrab gardens, which was near where we were staying. I had seen a sign for the gardens, and it advertised that it was a subtropical garden, so I really wanted to see that. It was so beautiful with so many different types of flowers and succulents. But what stole the show for me was the number of baby birds I saw there. Somehow I managed to find 4 different baby birds, all fledging and being fed by their parents. They were so adorable. It's easier to find baby ducks and geese, but for small birds like that, I think I've only seen 2 or 3 of them in my life--but here were 4 different species in one afternoon, and 5 if you include the herring gulls! The gardens are also fairly quiet, so it was a nice place to rest and soak in the sun for a bit as well.
The next day we decided to walk along the shore as it was low tide, and we found a huge lobster who had been trapped in some seaweed and couldn't get out before the tide went out. It wasn't trapped such that it was dangerous; it was actually trapped in a small pool of water surrounded by rocks and seaweed, so it would be able to remain there safely until the tide returned. But it sure looked like a crusty old guy. It was so huge, perhaps about half a metre long, had really pointy spikes on its back behind its head, and it was missing its left eye. The video I include here is of it cleaning or scratching its one good eye, or the socket. Not entirely sure. I've included more photos in the album below. We continued walking down the shore and got back up onto the sidewalk and headed toward Newlyn, a town whose border with Penzance seems rather nebulous. We stopped on a street corner for a moment and were approached by a couple who asked us if we were in the queue.
We hadn't intended to be, but we said we were anyway, and it turned out to be a good thing because eventually the line grew, and we learned we were standing in line for the Mackerel Sky Seafood Bar to open up for lunch; it's supposed to be one of the best places for seafood, served tapas style. And it was as good as the hype. We had smoked salmon pate, grilled mackerel, breaded calamari, and chips, and I washed it down with what was called Cornish apple juice. I wasn't sure if it was a gimmick, but no, it was the unfiltered type of apple juice I love, and a mix of 3 different apples, made locally. That was delicious, too! I wanted to eat as much seafood in Cornwall as I could, being on the coast and having lots of fresh seafood available. We returned to our room for a bit after that before heading to St. Michael's Mount. But that's a story for the next entry.
The photo album is here below. While I much prefer this program for blogging and photo sharing, one of the only things I don't like is that my captions are limited, so I can't always describe everything as I'd like. I'm limited to 30 characters, so hopefully you still get an idea of what's happening when I describe things!
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