Clements Expedition to Cornwall
Aug 6th, 2009 | 06:12 PM
#1
Original Poster
Joined: May 2006
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Clements Expedition to Cornwall
Part #1
Our reason for going to Great Britain in the first place was to attend the International Mining History conference in Redruth, Cornwall. I wanted to go a few days early to get used to the time change, so we left Denver at 11 a.m. on United June 9, the original time for the flight. However, a week before the flight, I got an email that the flight was going to leave a half hour earlier. When the time came, there was some sort of delay and we left at the original time. Our connection in Chicago was not in danger, we still had a couple hours to kill at O'Hare before boarding the United flight to Heathrow. DH is 6'4” and I spent the extra $100 on upgrading to Premium Economy so he would have leg room, and it was well worth it.
We arrived on time at Heathrow after an uneventful flight. We only had our Rick Steves backpacks as carry on, so we didn't have to wait for our bags and we headed to the Heathrow bus/coach station. I had purchased the tickets for the AirBus to Reading railway station before we left the US. We had a half hour wait for the bus so I went inside the station and bought our train tickets to St. Ives. I did some research and figured that based on our original itinerary, we would save money buying as we went instead of getting the BritRail pass. I still have to do the final accounting and see if that is true.
One advantage to the AirBus is that it has free wi-fi on the bus! So I was able to update our travel blog to say that we had arrived safely.
We got to Reading station and asked at the information desk which train we wanted for St. Ives. The train tickets in England just have your origin and destination on them. The trains are identified by the their final destination at the stations and unless you are going there also, you need to find a listing of all the stops a train makes to find your train. Most large stations will run a list of stops on their big boards, and even smaller stations will run a list of the stops of the next train. But this only helps for the next three or four trains. If you are early to the station, it can be a wait until the train you want comes up. I learned to copy out the all the information from nationalrail.co.uk, especially when we had changes.
It was about five hours to St. Erth where we changed for the train to St. Ives. Along the way we say some lovely countryside, including two White Horses. I haven't had time to research why there are two, I thought there was only one carved into the chalk hillside. I don't mean that they are side-by-side. They were several miles apart and on different sides of the train.
We got to St. Ives about 3:30 p.m. and went looking for our B&B. The owner said they were on the hill above the station and we would see it. But we walked the wrong way and it was a while before we saw it. We stayed at the Portminster View Guest House. We were very pleased with our room. I paid a little extra for a room with a view and what a view! We had some very nice sunsets. They also have a small breakfast menu to choose from. I had their small English breakfast all three mornings. I don't like most English sausages, but I liked theirs and the bacon was slightly smoked. The house is the former home of the railway station master and the owner is a railway enthusiast, so there are lots of train pictures in the breakfast room.
We dropped our bags, washed up and headed out to see some of the town. We walked along the beach and went up to the little chapel on the hill overlooking the town and the sea. By 5 pm we were ready to eat. We had a couple candy bars and cokes on the train, but otherwise had not eaten since the small breakfast snack on the plane before landing. We found that most restaurants don't open for dinner before 6 or 6:30. So we kept walking until we found a pub that was serving. I'm sorry, I don't have the name. We mailed stuff back to the US from time to time, and the package with the Cornwall information hasn't arrived yet (we have received the second package sent, so I hope it isn't lost).
We were in bed by 7:30 pm and slept until 7:30 am.
Next day was sightseeing around southwestern Cornwall. There is a bus, #300 that runs in the summer time. It makes a loop from Plymouth, to St. Ives, around the coast and back to Plymouth, or in the opposite direction. We caught the 9:30 am bus that heads down the coast. I had heard that the English like to queue for buses but we had to learn that they make one line for several buses. When your bus arrives, you get out of line and get on your bus because the people in front of you may be waiting for another bus. The #300 is an open double decker and we sat up on top. It provides a great view over the hedgerows, but is windy.
DH couldn't understand why it would take two hours to go the twenty miles or so to Land's End, but we found out quickly. Buses, and especially double-decker buses, are relatively new in Great Britain. The town and country roads were not laid out with them in mind. Some are extremely narrow, hardly wider than the bus itself. Cars, even the small cars they drive over there, have to pull over to let each other pass. The first bend in the road that we came to after leaving the bus station required the oncoming cars to stop and wait for the bus to negotiate the turn. From our vantage point, it looked like the bus was going to drive right into the building in front of it, but miraculously, it was able to turn safely. We could have reached out and touched the building, however. This was repeated several times on this bus trip and other buses we rode throughout our trip. In one Cornish village, a corner had been cut off the roof of a house to allow the bus to pass. For those who like adventure, a bus ride through the English countryside can provide many thrills.
We got off the bus at Land's End, which is supposed to be the most south-western bit of land on the British isle. It is also a cheesy tourist trap. We took pictures and bought some pasties for lunch. We then started on a little hike along the coast walk toward Porthcurno. We had lunch once we had left all the people behind. It is five miles to Porthcurno and took us about 3.5 hours. We stopped for lunch and stopped to look at the amazing sites along the way, including the surfers in several coves.
At Porthcurno we went to the telegraph museum which was interesting. The first trans-atlantic telegraph cable was run from here and it also connected with Africa and other European countries. During WWII, the military dug into the cliffs so the equipment could withstand bombing. From here we took the last #300 bus to Plymouth. We looked around Plymouth a bit. It was after 5:30 and all the shops were closed. We found a restaurants that opened at 6 pm and had dinner there (again, the name is in the lost package). We then took a bus back to St. Ives and arrived in time for the most amazing sunset.
Our reason for going to Great Britain in the first place was to attend the International Mining History conference in Redruth, Cornwall. I wanted to go a few days early to get used to the time change, so we left Denver at 11 a.m. on United June 9, the original time for the flight. However, a week before the flight, I got an email that the flight was going to leave a half hour earlier. When the time came, there was some sort of delay and we left at the original time. Our connection in Chicago was not in danger, we still had a couple hours to kill at O'Hare before boarding the United flight to Heathrow. DH is 6'4” and I spent the extra $100 on upgrading to Premium Economy so he would have leg room, and it was well worth it.
We arrived on time at Heathrow after an uneventful flight. We only had our Rick Steves backpacks as carry on, so we didn't have to wait for our bags and we headed to the Heathrow bus/coach station. I had purchased the tickets for the AirBus to Reading railway station before we left the US. We had a half hour wait for the bus so I went inside the station and bought our train tickets to St. Ives. I did some research and figured that based on our original itinerary, we would save money buying as we went instead of getting the BritRail pass. I still have to do the final accounting and see if that is true.
One advantage to the AirBus is that it has free wi-fi on the bus! So I was able to update our travel blog to say that we had arrived safely.
We got to Reading station and asked at the information desk which train we wanted for St. Ives. The train tickets in England just have your origin and destination on them. The trains are identified by the their final destination at the stations and unless you are going there also, you need to find a listing of all the stops a train makes to find your train. Most large stations will run a list of stops on their big boards, and even smaller stations will run a list of the stops of the next train. But this only helps for the next three or four trains. If you are early to the station, it can be a wait until the train you want comes up. I learned to copy out the all the information from nationalrail.co.uk, especially when we had changes.
It was about five hours to St. Erth where we changed for the train to St. Ives. Along the way we say some lovely countryside, including two White Horses. I haven't had time to research why there are two, I thought there was only one carved into the chalk hillside. I don't mean that they are side-by-side. They were several miles apart and on different sides of the train.
We got to St. Ives about 3:30 p.m. and went looking for our B&B. The owner said they were on the hill above the station and we would see it. But we walked the wrong way and it was a while before we saw it. We stayed at the Portminster View Guest House. We were very pleased with our room. I paid a little extra for a room with a view and what a view! We had some very nice sunsets. They also have a small breakfast menu to choose from. I had their small English breakfast all three mornings. I don't like most English sausages, but I liked theirs and the bacon was slightly smoked. The house is the former home of the railway station master and the owner is a railway enthusiast, so there are lots of train pictures in the breakfast room.
We dropped our bags, washed up and headed out to see some of the town. We walked along the beach and went up to the little chapel on the hill overlooking the town and the sea. By 5 pm we were ready to eat. We had a couple candy bars and cokes on the train, but otherwise had not eaten since the small breakfast snack on the plane before landing. We found that most restaurants don't open for dinner before 6 or 6:30. So we kept walking until we found a pub that was serving. I'm sorry, I don't have the name. We mailed stuff back to the US from time to time, and the package with the Cornwall information hasn't arrived yet (we have received the second package sent, so I hope it isn't lost).
We were in bed by 7:30 pm and slept until 7:30 am.
Next day was sightseeing around southwestern Cornwall. There is a bus, #300 that runs in the summer time. It makes a loop from Plymouth, to St. Ives, around the coast and back to Plymouth, or in the opposite direction. We caught the 9:30 am bus that heads down the coast. I had heard that the English like to queue for buses but we had to learn that they make one line for several buses. When your bus arrives, you get out of line and get on your bus because the people in front of you may be waiting for another bus. The #300 is an open double decker and we sat up on top. It provides a great view over the hedgerows, but is windy.
DH couldn't understand why it would take two hours to go the twenty miles or so to Land's End, but we found out quickly. Buses, and especially double-decker buses, are relatively new in Great Britain. The town and country roads were not laid out with them in mind. Some are extremely narrow, hardly wider than the bus itself. Cars, even the small cars they drive over there, have to pull over to let each other pass. The first bend in the road that we came to after leaving the bus station required the oncoming cars to stop and wait for the bus to negotiate the turn. From our vantage point, it looked like the bus was going to drive right into the building in front of it, but miraculously, it was able to turn safely. We could have reached out and touched the building, however. This was repeated several times on this bus trip and other buses we rode throughout our trip. In one Cornish village, a corner had been cut off the roof of a house to allow the bus to pass. For those who like adventure, a bus ride through the English countryside can provide many thrills.
We got off the bus at Land's End, which is supposed to be the most south-western bit of land on the British isle. It is also a cheesy tourist trap. We took pictures and bought some pasties for lunch. We then started on a little hike along the coast walk toward Porthcurno. We had lunch once we had left all the people behind. It is five miles to Porthcurno and took us about 3.5 hours. We stopped for lunch and stopped to look at the amazing sites along the way, including the surfers in several coves.
At Porthcurno we went to the telegraph museum which was interesting. The first trans-atlantic telegraph cable was run from here and it also connected with Africa and other European countries. During WWII, the military dug into the cliffs so the equipment could withstand bombing. From here we took the last #300 bus to Plymouth. We looked around Plymouth a bit. It was after 5:30 and all the shops were closed. We found a restaurants that opened at 6 pm and had dinner there (again, the name is in the lost package). We then took a bus back to St. Ives and arrived in time for the most amazing sunset.
Aug 7th, 2009 | 03:01 PM
#4
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 26,984
Likes: 0
GBabe, it's easier for readers to read a TR if you post the whole trip report (at least the same geographic area) under one thread. You can contact the Fodors editors to add a trip report tag to this thread. (Click on the grey triangle on the horizontal bar and you get a pop-up window where you can email the editors.)
I'll put the part 2 link here:
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...l-186125-2.cfm
I'll put the part 2 link here:
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...l-186125-2.cfm
