Day 12 in England: It All Begins at Tintagel

 

It was definitely a Bank Holiday weekend! Breakfast was packed, and the hostess was freaking out. People kept trying to change up the combinations of their full English breakfast even though she admitted she had no way to keep their orders straight, and the Australian couple behind us kept making her go back and put more scoops of coffee in their coffee press, because "British coffee is weak."

Here's my dutifully complete full English breakfast, black pudding and all!

See my delicious orange juice? We kept sneaking back up to the community carafe for refills every time the hostess went into the kitchen to cry, so that she wouldn't be additionally distressed at how much we were hydrating. Everyone else in the restaurant barely touched the juice!

Here's the rest of our day:

• Tintagel Castle
• Dartmoor National Park
• Lyme Regis

Thanks to Matt attempting to ask for only ham, sausage and eggs for breakfast and therefore working the hostess into a dither, we didn't arrive at Tintagel right when it opened, and OMG it was crowded. We learned that not only was it the Bank Holiday Weekend we'd been hearing about, but also the next week was a nation-wide school holiday... we had lots of company everywhere we went for the rest of our trip! 

Much of the Tintagel site is on a headland whose access point to the mainland has mostly collapsed, so you walk across a beautiful pedestrian bridge towards the ruins of a 13th century castle built by the Earl of Cornwall:

There's the bridge connecting us to the mainland.

The tide was high during our visit, but during low tide you can explore the beach and walk into many of those caves: 

Some of us had a wonderful time exploring this headland, taking in the views and the vista and enjoying the height:

Others did not enjoy this, and huddled as far away from the views and the vista and the height as they could:

I'd been inspired to check out the logistics of this drive all the way to Cornwall solely because of its connection to Arthurian legend, which is one of the teenager's current Special Interests. In Le Morte d'Arthur, which we read together last semester (and in Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain, which we're going to start this week!), Arthur is conceived inside Tintagel Castle, where Igraine is hiding after Uther Pendragon takes a rapey liking to her. Igraine's husband Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, got his wife the hell out of that party where Uther first noticed her, which pissed Uther off, so he used their departure without his permission as his excuse to wage war against Gorlois. 

While Gorlois was off fighting and Igraine was hiding, Merlin figured out a plan to get Uther inside Tintagel Castle so he could rape Igraine. His price: why, only their firstborn child, of course!

Uther had NO problem promising their firstborn child to a magician whose father was an incubus, so he was completely on board with Merlin's plan to magically disguise him as Gorlois. Wearing his Gorlois skin, Uther rode right up to the gates of Tintagel. His servants were shocked to see him, since he was supposed to be literally fighting a battle really far away at the moment. His wife was equally shocked, but Uther got his booty call.

He would have gotten away with it, too, except that the real Gorlois was actually right that second dying in battle...

Anyway, Igraine actually did come around to marrying Uther after her husband (and therefore all means of support and defense against a predatory, powerful king) died, and she, too, had no problem giving baby Arthur up to Merlin. Merlin sent Arthur to live with Muggles, and The Once and Future King is my favorite continuation of that story. 

This is the perfect spot, then, to pay our respects to the birth of the legend that's brought so much magic and beauty into my life:

Matt was so embarrassed to take this photo, lol, but the teenager and I were VERY into it! We're being real knights!

Also, cheese!

Also on the headland are the remains of a beautiful Medieval garden that the Earl of Cornwall may have had constructed to mimic the garden from the story of Tristan and Iseult. 

As you walk around the perimeter of the garden, stepping stones tell you the story:

After exploring the headland, we walked down the path--

--under the bridge--

--past the beach and Merlin's Cave, and then up the long, steep road back into Tintagel... and Cornish pasties!!!

This was our best meal of the entire trip. These Cornish pasties were DELICIOUS!!!

I wanted to be in Lyme Regis in time for the late afternoon low tide, but fortunately we had just enough wiggle room in our schedule for a quick drive and a short hike in Dartmoor National Park. 

The parking lot was teeny-tiny and tight, so the college student and I, the two who were the most revved up about hiking in Dartmoor, bailed and started our hike while Matt waited in the car in case anyone left the lot and he could squeeze in. The disinterested teen stayed with him, and to be honest, we didn't expect to see them at ALL. Imagine our surprise, then, when we saw these two figures on the horizon!

We were technically hiking towards Scorhill Stone Circle, but there wasn't any signage or really any paths, so what we actually did was wander up towards Hound Tor and simply admire the endless moor all around us. Here's a nice rock, though!

People live in Dartmoor National Park, as well, and our walk back abutted someone's sheep field and this very old wall to demarcate it:

Driving through Dartmoor National Park was some of our most terrifying driving yet. And it wasn't even the sheep that were often snoozing in the middle of the road, because we were only going about 5mph so we had plenty of time to stop for them.

Instead, it was THIS!

This is not a road. This is a HEDGE MAZE!

It is a single car-width hedge maze, complete with all the twists and turns that make it impossible to see what's coming from the other direction.

Fortunately, the one time we did encounter a car, we were near enough to someone's gate that Matt could back up, squeeze over against it, and the opposing car could squeeze up against the hedges on their side and creep past. I have NO idea what you're supposed to do if a car wants to pass you here:

At least it made the highways after Dartmoor National Park seem less terrifying by comparison!

We made it to our hotel in Beer with just enough time for us to throw our bags in our rooms and for some of us to head right back out again (others of us took that time to catch up on their socials and pretend like we don't exist). We were going to be in this area for two low tides, and I didn't want to miss a single second of either of them!

We weren't exactly fossil hunting at a Mary Anning level, ahem, but we did find plenty of pretties to weigh down our luggage and distress airport security:

And here are some huge pieces that we admired on our walk:

We got back to Beer around 7:00 to discover that although the town was HOPPING with vacationers, there was absolutely no food to be found. The pubs were overflowing and were all serving drinks only at that point, no food whatsoever. Matt walked around and checked a couple out while the teenager and I hung out on a bench and did some people-watching. The best thing we saw was a group of about four drunk guys, walking down the middle of the road with their arms around each other, singing "We are the cheeky lads!" When we travel, we're always on the lookout for local color, lol!

And that's how we all ended up back in our hotel, bingeing a reality show about people who vacation in caravan parks and supping on only slightly smushed crisps and chocolate bars from our bag of road snacks. 

• Day 1: We made it to England!
• Day 2: Westminster Abbey, National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, and Six
• Day 3: British Museum and Buckingham Palace
• Day 4: Mudlarks and Southwark
• Day 5: Natural History Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum
• Day 6: Pax Lodge, the Tower of London, and Afternoon Tea
• Day 7: Back and Forth by Boat to Greenwich
• Day 8: We Careen Our Way to Canterbury Cathedral and Dover Beach
• Day 9: Dover, Hastings, and a Holloway
• Day 10, Part 1: All the Giant Rocks
• Day 10, Part 2: Stonehenge, At Last!
• Day 11: To Avalon with King Arthur
• Day 12: Tintagel
• Day 13: In the Footsteps of Mary Anning
• Day 14: Homewards!