Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Cornwall and Stonehedge

This past weekend I went to Cornwall with Martin and his family. His brother-in-law's family has a cottage there and invited us all down. We left early early Saturday morning and came back Monday evening. It was such a nice weekend! The weather was horrible. Absolutely miserable, but it was such beautiful country and it was so special to see the ocean again that I didn't mind. Plus it was nice to have an excuse to sit inside with cups and tea and read a book, waiting for tennis to come back on after the rain. And take long afternoon naps. Those are the best! His mom also baked me a birthday cake and we opened a bottle of champagne to celebrate my 21 birthday. Very nice. Here are some pictures. (note-even though you can see some blue sky in some of these don't be fooled!-there was almost NO blue sky the whole weekend but pouring down rain!)

I can't remember the name of this town (something castle) but apparently it is famous. A few years back there was a flash flood that came tearing down this gorge and swept several cars into the ocean, as well as a few homes. Luckily no one was hurt but the flood damage was tremendous. And now it is a tourist attraction! I wasn't so keen on being there on a very rainy day but I guess a little adventure never hurt anyone. We didn't get to walk around too much as it was pretty rainy and we had Henry, Martin's nephew with us. But we did get to have a cream tea and that made the trip in the rain more than worth it! (and the views, the views were worth it too!)
The rock in the distance is named after Queen Victoria as it is suppose to look like her profile. Can't really tell from this picture but it sort of does...

This is the beach across the street from the cottage. It was a very nice beach with a grassy cliff and I am sure on a warm summers day would be lots of fun to hang out on. What amazed me were people were swimming in the ocean on a rainy day, acting like they were in the Caribbean or something. Crazy Brits!
On the last day we took a muddy walk into town. This was the beginning of the walk and down below is the beach in front of the cottage. We were lucky as it didn't rain the whole time, although it was rather windy. Blocked from the wind though and one almost got quite warm!
And here is Stonehedge which passed on the way to and back from Cornwall. I am bummed this picture didn't turn out but I don't feel the need to go back to take a better one. They don't even let you walk amongst the rocks now so I feel pretty good about telling people I have seen it. And very glad I didn't have to make a special trip to say so!