Day 9: Castles and Cornwall
Tintagel Castle
We drove to Tintagel Castle, long associated with King Arthur, and toured the ruins and beautiful coast line. It definitely helped to visualize all of those King Arthur stories and the setting in which those would have taken place. There is a cave on the coast there called Merlin’s Cave. It was beautiful scenery. We were supposed to catch the shuttle to the top but missed it, so we walked. It almost killed me, but we made it! The bridge opened in 2019 and was great to get right across to the island portion of the peninsula. The beauty of the area is hard to describe and impossible to capture in photos. |
Food and Culture
At the top, we went to the pub for our Pasty dinner. We were eating it with a fork, and the waitress just laughed and told us we made her day. Apparently, everyone eats them with their hands like a sandwich. From there, we went to a little seaside town of Port Isaac. Apparently, the British TV show Doc Martin is/ was filmed there. Some in the tour had watched and enjoyed that. We took a stroll along the shore, had some locally made ice cream, and hung out a bit. Supper included a lesson in Cornish culture and history. During dessert, we were entertained by the Bryhers Boys, a men’s group who sang us Celtic songs, told us about Celtic heritage, including sea shanty songs. It was great--entertaining and interactive. Note: We got stuck in really bad traffic going there due to the construction of a 4 lane high way. It was the worst traffic our guide had ever seen there. |