Cornwall ho!

Last week Madhavi took a couple of days off from work and we made a road trip to Salisbury, Cotswolds and Cornwall. We decided we would rent a car and drive so that we have more flexibility on where we wanted to go and also explore the rural roads of England. My expectations were set by Market Blandings!

First Salisbury. I had always doubted the fact that it was England that would have invented the game of cricket. How was it possible for someone to stand still in the first slip in this cold and clammy weather? Wouldn’t he be frozen stiff? I can understand football being invented here. Fast, brisk activity for an hour and a half and that’s it. But five days of slip fielding in this weather, only someone insane would have invented this game in England. But after our recent road trip this doubt has been cleared. There has been a weather change. In the distant past England was not always like this. It was sunny and the evidence of that more or less strikes you at your face in the Salisbury plains. With the current English weather all the theory about the stones being arranged to act as a solar calendar for folks of that time would be just hogwash. It would have been possible only if it was sunnier then. Considering that the pre-historics carted large sized boulders from great distances to build a calendar I guess they would have given enough thought about how much sun is actually seen around that place. Stonehenge is visible from A303. A303, by the way, is not a motorway (a.k.a. freeway) but a dual carriage way but people still drive 70 mph. When we took M3 (a motorway) there were no speed limits posted, so I cruised along with rest of the traffic which was driving at least 75 mph. It is a bit surprising. I would think that the US would have higher speed limits. Even in Texas with wide open spaces the speed limit was 75 mph, otherwise it has always been 65 or lower. So we reached Stonehenge much earlier than I expected. Also, why do they still have speeds listed in miles? I thought all countries other than the US have gone metric.

Trying a Sivaji Ganesan expression next to Stonehenge

From there we went to Salisbury (pronounced saulsbury) town to have a look at the cathedral there. The cathedral was fabulous. Inside it was breathtaking, high ceilings and a huge organ which someone was playing. The arches and perpendiculars were truly breathtaking. How did they manage to build such high structures so long back? What was the architectural tricks did they employ? Of course, none of these questions were answered. As in Oxford, there is really no clear mention of the history of the place and how it was built and that kind of stuff. I am still not reconciled to this aspect of tourism in UK. I know they have a general culture of downplaying stuff here but this is stretching that a bit far.

Salisbury Cathedral

The next plan was to spend a day in Cotswolds. Not in the usual patel point route map but Cotswolds is where you expect to encounter the real English country side. And we did indeed. Due the exceptional navigational skills of my co-passenger we managed to get terribly lost in the small and winding country roads (the kinds you would expect Galahad Threepwod cycling back after having half a dozen pints in the local Inn). The navigator, though, claimed that the entire exercise was deliberate and well thought out. Thanks to this we got to see some really outstanding rural scenes, with whitewashed thatched cottages among undulating meadows, stone mansions and lots of sheep. It looks like most of land is used as meadow land for sheep. Actually, since the roman times England has been know for its wool export and it is an activity that is still continuing. Since this is end of summer most of the grass was getting harvested for hay which would tide the sheep over during the long winter months. We were pleasantly surprised to see the thatched cottages, very cute with their little flower beds on window sills. We also visited a very cute town, The Slaughters (lower and upper).

No, this is not a painting. It is a picture perfect Cotswolds village!

We had an interesting experience in one of the small towns in Cotswold. Overall, in this trip to the UK I have found the people even in the London area exceedingly friendly. I don’t remember if I mentioned this before but I found this very refreshing. I was expecting a stiff upper lip but what I notice is a very mid-western conviviality combined with north-east intellect. Well, take this incident for instance. We were totally lost (again) when we planned to take a long walk in the country side from one of the smaller towns (well this time it was my navigation skills and it was not at all intentional) and we landed up only in the other end of the town. We saw this middle aged lady walking down the street and we walked up to her to ask for directions. She took a lot of trouble explaining the way and then decided we were hopelessly lost for the original trail and recommended a different path which was supposed to be equally scenic and which runs right behind her house. We were walking down the street and Madhavi remarked how pretty some of the gardens were in the houses we passed. The lady invited us to her house to see her garden and I am sure if we appeared to have had more time she would have even invited for a cup of tea with some scones and clotted cream. It was really a nice experience. This is not one-off, I have consistently found warmth and at the same time lot of more knowledge. You don’t get the vague look here when you mention you are from India. I did not even have to spell out my name so many times when I had to book for the B&Bs.

A cottage with a thatched roof and whitewashed walls

From Cotswold we drove directly to our final destination Cornwall, to the famed Dauphne Du Maurier landscapes. We reached St. Ives, the supposed artists’ village on the west end of Cornwall and hated the sight of it. There was something pretentious about the whole place with pretty villas overlooking the bay, crowded with tacky souvenir shops and cafes. We took a short walk to a nearby beach and quickly departed from that town. Our final destination for the night was Penzance where I had booked a B&B. I did not expect much from that place since I did no planning, I ran through the Lonely Planet to find the first available B&B in west Cornwall and booked it. Thankfully all the ones in St. Ives were booked out. We decided to take the coast route and as usual Madhavi did some good planning on the route and we took a small detour and landed in this secluded cove with a small light house in the end. The place looked deadly with very gusty winds, cliffs, rocks and caves. Very much like what you would imagine when reading a Famous Five, pirates and all. We braved the winds and walked to almost the surf. There was no one around and we had the whole coast to ourselves. It was really fantastic. Penzance turned out to be a much better place than St. Ives. The next day the weather was expected to be sunny and Madhavi again did some good planning (again) to pick up an area in the coast with more spectacular scenery. We drove there straight and spent the whole day mostly lolling around on soft grass beds on cliff tops watching the surf pound the rocks. It was most satisfying when we saw two kestrels hovering over the cliff edges looking for something to munch. Madhavi spent a lot of time photographing waves, rocks and old abandoned tin mines in that area.

Breathtaking Cornwall coast

On the whole a very satisfying trip. I guess we will not venture out again for longer trips, only day trips from London. May be Canterbury and Devon and thats it!