Today we bid a fond farewell to London. After a great night’s sleep, we woke to one of the only alarms we will set this trip so we could finish packing and pick up the rental car. We bade goodbye to our fabulous flat, loaded the bags into the hired Ford Focus (an upgrade from the Fiesta we paid for apparently) and hit the road. Our goal for the day was to head to the far southwest corner of the island – Penzance on the southern coast of Cornwall, the southern most county in England. It would be 300 miles – about 2/3 of the trip on motorways – and take about 5 hours.
In case you were wondering, highway driving in England is just as boring as it is in most parts of the US. We hit traffic outside Bristol which held us up for a good half hour. We eventually made it to the end of the M5 outside Essex and stopped for a desperately needed bathroom break and lunch in Devon in a little village called Ide. We found one of the two pubs in the village, the Huntsman Inn. It was a typical village pub – the kind we mistakenly looked for in London – with low ceilings, exposed beams and a thatched roof. More importantly, they had a fabulo
us menu with lots of things with GF marked on them! I had a half pint of hand pulled cider (which I actually didn’t like very much) with my pan fried cod, spinach, and new potatoes. Frank had a half of Doom Bar Cornish Ale (the kind Cormoran Strike drinks if you are a Robert Galbraith fan) with his gammon steak and chips. The food was lovely and the atmosphere even more so – it was truly a village pub where locals gathered around us and discussed the 80’s night the pub had hosted the night before. Apparently, the bar tender didn’t really do a good job with Spandau Ballet’s “True” and some of the old boys at the bar wanted him to know that.
And we were back on the road. More horrific motorworks and delays on the A30 and then we were finally at our destination: Dune Cottage outside Penzance. It’s really in the middle of nowhere but not too far from the town and at first I was disappointed because I didn’t remember that being the case. But then we got a good look around and I recalled that the king size bed and double jacuzzi bathtub were probably why we decided that being in the center of town wasn’t crucial. We dropped off the bags and did a tour of the area – including a stop at the local Sainsbury’s where we bought more groceries than I’m sure we’ll eat in three days (and lots of local beer and cider as well….)
And back t
o the cottage to cook a nice dinner – chicken with pesto and mozzarella wrapped in bacon, new potatoes and haricots verts, all inappropriately paired with a lovely Barolo. An after dinner walk across the fields showed us a gorgeous sunset and we decided to call it a day with some tea and homemade “pavlovas” – meringues, rasperries and double cream somewhat artfully arranged in a bowl for about 30 seconds before being completely devoured. Now for a good night’s sleep before we explore the northern coast of Cornwall in the morning.
Today’s numbers:
- Miles driven: ~340
- Litres of petrol used: 25 (by the 1000 cc, 3 cylinder engine)
- Minutes sitting in stupid traffic for roadworks on the last Bank holiday weekend of the year: 40
- Steps taken: 8,824 (about 3.8 miles which really isn’t bad considering we spent most of the day in the car).
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