Yesterday’s post didn’t go up until late, so you might have missed it.  Scroll down to view it.  And, as always, click on photos for larger views.

Venton Vean B&B is great.  It’s located a few blocks from the sea in a quiet residential neighborhood.  And Phillipa makes a great breakfast  —  especially the breads and homemade jams.  Even before breakfast this morning we ventured out to the Suds and Surf Launderette where we dropped off two loads of laundry for wash and fold service to be picked up tomorrow morning.

Then it was off to St Michael’s Mount, the Cornwall equivalent of Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy although not quite on so grand a scale.  St Michael’s Mount is still the residence of the St Aubyn family, but it is under the management now of the National Trust and large portions of the castle can be visited.  At low tide, you can walk to the island; otherwise, there are small ferry shuttles running every few minutes.  We toured the castle and the gardens under murky skies and fog.

 

It’s a Slippery Climb to the Castle

Then we headed to Porthcurno, a short but arduous drive from Penzance, for our 2 PM performance of Shakespeare’s the Taming of the Shrew at the famous outdoor Minack Theatre.  What could be better than Shakespeare with a view of the ocean?  Well, perhaps good weather for the performance.  Act I was overcast and drizzly at times.  Act II was performed under steady rain.  The all-female cast and the audience soldiered on through it all, and the show was very enjoyable despite the wet conditions.

After the show we drove home to dry out before dinner.  The restaurant we chose was the Cornish Range in nearby Mousehole (really!) about two miles away.  They specialize in seafood, and we partook.  (No pictures tonight.)  For starters I had lobster, crab and fish bisque with Parmesan (yum) while Elaine enjoyed crayfish and avocado salad.  Unusually, we both had the same main course:  hake served with chorizo sausage, shrimp, and scallops in a yummy sauce.  Wonderful!  Elaine had her new favorite dessert, Eton mess, while I had lemon tart served with fresh raspberries and strawberries.  Cornwall does have wineries, but only rose and white, so we had a nice pinot noir from Australia.

Running late this morning, so it will be a quick and dirty blog entry.  Yesterday after another lovely breakfast, we were in the car heading for Penzance.  We made three stops along the way.

First stop was at Polperro, a delightful fishing village in Cornwall.  No non-resident cars allowed in the town, but there is a large parking lot just at the border.  The streets are narrow and filled with shops and restaurants and B&Bs.  We had a walk through the town to take pictures, bought some post cards, had an ice cream (tasted like 98% butterfat), and took pictures.

Then it was on to the town of Bodmin.  There is a military museum here but we opted to visit the old Bodmin Jail.  Lots of stories about the prisoners held here over the years, but essentially we could have skipped this and later wished we had.

The reason for wishing we had given the Jail a miss was our next stop, the Eden Project.  Read the story about it in the link.  It’s pretty fascinating:  HUGE greenhouses to wander through.  We toured both big areas, the Mediterranean and the Rain Forest.  We could have spent a lot more time here rather than in a boring jail.

Then it was back in the car for the last hour of the drive to Penzance.  We arrived and immediately checked in at Venton Vean, our B&B for three nights.  A brief rest and a shower, then we ventured out across the park to the Turks Head Pub, the oldest pub in Penzance, for dinner.  We started with olives and ciabatta with olive oil.  Then I had a delicious fish pie while Elaine enjoyed a beautiful looking and tasting Cornwall Seafood Chowder.  We split an Eton Mess for desert.  And home it was to bed after a long day.

Breakfast at the Charterhouse was pretty darn good.  Everything here is done buffet style, and the selection is huge.  Fresh fruit with muesli and yoghurt for me followed by poached eggs with bacon, sausage, and hash browns.  And tea, of course.

Then we struck out for Greenway House, about 15 miles away in the village of Galmpton.  Run now by the ubiquitous National Trust, this was the summer home of Agatha Christie for many years.  The place is filled with Agatha Christie’s belongings and is a treasure trove for fans of Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot.  It’s very popular and you have to have reservations to park near the house, and I had arranged for that before leaving home.  We toured the house and gardens, wandered down to the boathouse, and enjoyed our stay.  I read all her mysteries many years ago, but I don’t know that much about her.  So I bought her autobiography in the gift shop.

Then it was off to another National Trust treasure about five miles away – Coleton Fishacre.  It’s a beautiful home with marvelous gardens built by the D’Oyly Carte family, entertainment moguls who started the Savoy Hotel empire. Opera producers, they were probably the primary reason that Gilbert and Sullivan wrote any operas.  The home is magnificent, built in the art deco style and beautifully furnished.  The gardens are extensive.  Before touring the site, we visited the tea room and enjoyed an official Devon Cream Tea, delicious scones with jam and enough clotted cream to clog a whole bunch of arteries.  Yummy.

Then we headed back and parked at our B&B and walked the short trail to Cockington Village.  It’s basically thatched huts that now house tea rooms and gift shops.  Pretty, but boring.  Fortunately there is also a great pub – The Drum Inn.  We had a couple of pints (of Carlings) and had a nice chat with a Brit on holiday from Lincolnshire.

It was a long day, so time for a rest up in the room before heading out to dinner in Torquay at the Old Vienna Restaurant.  It’s rated #1 in Torquay on TripAdvisor.  We drove to the restaurant and luckily found a parking spot just a short walk away.  Dinner was grand!  Gourmet food and great service.  For starters, Elaine had a venison, pork, and apple sausage on a bed of the best ever sauerkraut while I enjoyed smoked duck breast.  For her main Elaine chose chicken breast stuffed with asparagus accompanied by mushroom risotto and a fresh tomato reduction, and I had local deer cooked rare with red wine reduction and chanterelle mushrooms.  These were accompanied by a platter of fresh local vegetables.  We shared an apple strudel for desert.  It was all scrumptious.  We had a red Austrian wine that was good.  Austria seems to have recovered from the infamous 1985 wine antifreeze scandal.  We also had a nice chat with an English couple from Kent at the next table and later on with the slightly batty owner/chef.

Tomorrow after breakfast we are off to Penzance with some stops planned along the way.  Tune in again then.

 

Breakfast at Rokeby Guest House was excellent if not memorable.  We ate at 8:00 and got an early start in the car for our next destination, Torquay (pronounced tor-key) in Devon, home of the Devon Cream Tea.  The Devon coast is known as the English Riviera.  It was about a two hour ride and our first stop was in Babbacombe to visit the Babbacombe Model Village, an English institution.  It’s four acres of miniature landscapes — sounds corny but it is oddly fascinating.  Very well done.  Here is a slide show of some scenes from the village

 Click on the Slide Show for an Enlarged Version

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Babbacombe is a village that is just a short distance from Torquay.  We bought some cheese, bread, and apples in a shop for a picnic lunch.  Then we headed for the Babbacombe Downs (no, not a race track) for a nice scenic spot to enjoy the food along the cliffs.

Then it was on to Torquay for a walkabout around the harbor before heading for our next B&B.  It’s a busy place, the waterfront, and the highlight is a large ferris wheel right at the harbor.  Naturally we had to take a ride for some great views.  We walked then to the Torquay Living Coasts but decided against going in and seeing the animals and exhibits.  Time for a pint!  We picked Seamus O’Donnell’s, an Irish pub right on the waterfront.  Good beer which we enjoyed sitting outside.

As always, Click on the Photos for Larger Images

Then it was on to the Charterhouse, our home for the next two nights.  It’s a very nice establishment (with a pool) in a quiet neighborhood.  We unloaded the luggage and rested up in our very nice room.  At about 7:00 we headed out for the 20 minute walk back to the harbor for dinner.  Our first choice was full up, but we had a very nice meal at the Marina Restaurant.  The owner was very engaging, and it was a good meal (pictures below).

After the return twenty minute walk to the Charterhouse, it was time for bed.  Tune in tomorrow.

Breakfast at 76 Duke Street was fabulous.  Delicious fruit compote followed scrambled eggs (done perfectly), hash browns, English bacon, and fried bread (yum!) for me.  Elaine had the fruit followed by salmon and scrambled eggs.  There’s an art to making scrambled eggs, and Julia has it down pat.

Then we headed out under overcast skies.  Our first stop, after about 30 minutes, was at the old English landmark pictured below:

We both bought under sweaters for wearing under our rain gear as it appears it might be a bit colder than we anticipated.  Elaine bought some socks, and I picked up four bottles of wine.  While there are some different items, it looks remarkably like Costco Scottsdale.

Another hour or so and we really were at an English landmark and World Heritage Site:  Stonehenge.  You can’t go right among the stones, but rather you follow a path that totally surrounds them.  Some have said it’s not worth it as you can see them from the road just as well.  They are wrong.  There is an interesting and informative audio commentary, and the opportunity for pictures is outstanding.  And the weather cooperated – mostly overcast with occasional sunny breaks.

We joined the Royal Oak Foundation, the American branch of the UK’s National Trust, before we left home.  So admission to Stonehenge was free with our membership cards.

Then it was on to Salisbury, just down the road a bit, our overnight destination.  We were way to early to check in, so we parked downtown.  For lunch we bought sandwiches and drinks from a little shop and ate on a bench overlooking the Avon River.

Then we visited another National Trust site just near Salisbury Cathedral, Mompesson House.  (Free again for us, yea!)  It was the typical old house tour but strangely intriguing.  It rained a bit while we were in the house, but it stopped just as we were leaving.  Then it was over to Salisbury Cathedral, an imposing structure with just a little bit of the seemingly always present scaffolding.  Inside is the usual impressive cathedral but also a room that contains one of the four remaining copies of the 1215 version of the original Magna Carta.  It was, so they say, the model for our own Declaration of Independence.

There was time before leaving downtown for a stop at a pub.  We chose the Ox Row Inn.  We both had a beer sitting outside and watched the world pass by.

Then we used the GPS to find Rokeby Guest House, our home for the night.  It’s larger than the usual B&B and located a ten minute walk from downtown.  Then after a bit of a rest we walked back into town for dinner without reservations.  Our first choice was closed on Monday and our second (the Ox Row Inn) offered a “limited” menu because of “a problem” in the kitchen.  That didn’t sound promising, so we opted out.  We finally decided on the oldest pub in town, the Coach and Horses.  Elaine had two appetizers, mushroom & thyme soup followed by  chicken & apricot terrine.  I had pate for my starter followed by grilled sardines.  What were the pre-trip odds of me having sardines two nights in a row.  They seem to be on every menu here.  Dinner was fine. Elaine accompanied hers with wine while I enjoyed beer.

And home to bed.

Leaving Las Vegas

Last year when we flew to Manchester, UK, we spent the morning at South Point Casino betting the horses and made a lot of money.  This year we tried to do the same, but the gods of gambling had other things in mind.  We lost.  Leaving the casino, we had time for lunch on the way to the airport, so we stopped at a Five Guys hamburger place.  This was our first time trying this chain.  It’s sort of like In and Out – Elaine liked it better while I thought it was about the same.  Good burgers, good fries.  Then we turned the car in and took the shuttle to await our Virgin Atlantic flight for London Gatwick.  The flight left right on time.

Arriving London

The flight was as pleasant as flights can be these days.  After drinks and dinner, Elaine watched two episodes of House of Cards on the entertainment system and fell in love with it.  I watched the flight map (exciting!) and tried to doze with limited success.  We were served breakfast and then arrived at Gatwick about thirty minutes early.

Clearing immigration control was a breeze and our bags were on the carousal when we got to baggage claim – take note American air lines, it shouldn’t take forever to get the bags to the customers.  We had a two hour wait for our scheduled bus shuttle to Heathrow Airport (where we had to go to pick up our car), but we exchanged our tickets for an earlier bus.  The hour ride to Heathrow was uneventful.

Then we called the Renault agent and he came to pick us up in our new Renault Megane Berline.  We drove back to the office to sign some documents, and the nice guy (the boss) showed us the ins and outs of the keyless car, shown below after a masterful parallel parking job.

We immediately had to stop for gas as they give you just enough to find a gas station.  I filled it up with diesel (for £55 = about $92).  We had to stop briefly to reprogram the GPS (SatNav to Brits) to be in English rather than French.  Coded Windsor in as our destination, and we were off to our first stop in the UK.  We parked near the center for a brief walkabout and some lunch – shared a nice appetizer platter and glasses of Shiraz – and then we headed for our B&B for the night.

76 Duke Street is the name (and the address, of course) of the B&B.  Julia greeted us and showed us our digs.  She rents to only customer per night.  The bedroom was on the second floor overlooking Duke Street.  The bathroom is not en-suite, but that is no problem as you have the run of the entire second floor and the bathroom is just down the hall.

After much needed showers (and a short nap for Elaine), we headed out for a walk downtown for dinner.  We had reservations at 7:30 at Al Fassia, a Moroccan restaurant that is highly rated on Trip Advisor.  We ordered a nice bottle of Moroccan red wine – very good.  For started I had fried sardines with a nice tomato sauce while Elaine had grilled eggplant salad.  For mains, I had a delicious lamb tangine, and Elaine had chicken tangine with sweet onions and raisins.  It was all very good.

Then we stumbled back to the B&B for some much needed sleep.

Thursday afternoon Elaine dropped me at the local Hertz office at Hayden and Raintree, and I picked our rental car for drop-off in Las Vegas.  It’s an all black four door Dodge Avenger – pretty nice car actually.

We shoved off from home at 9:30 this morning after packing the car, shutting off the water, and turning down the thermostat.  We started out by immediately stopping at McDonald’s on FLW for our first vacation meal, a combined breakfast/lunch. We had our usual fare – Sausage McMuffins with Egg and Hash Browns.  Can’t beat it.

The drive was uneventful and after 4-1/2 hours we checked in at the Marriott Springhill Suites in Henderson (after only a brief rest room, get-a-Coke stop).  The Last Vegas area is under a flood warning with ominous skies overhead.  I quickly went out and found a market to buy a bottle of wine –  a nice cheap Georges DuBoeuf Beaujolais-Villages.  We brought our own snack food.

After using the hotel computer to check in with Virgin Atlantic and print out our boarding passes (can’t do until 4:40 pm), we will head out for an early dinner at a Carrabba’s located nearby.  I normally get Chicken Bryan, a dish I love, but I may opt out for steak tonight.

Tomorrow morning we will check and go to South Point Casino (well away from the hustle and bustle of the strip) and bet the races at Belmont Park and Churchill Downs. [note: Elaine was telling people we would be at the Gold Coast – she was mistaken]  At about 12:30, we’ll head out from there for the airport to turn in the car and await our 4:40 departure for London Gatwick.

No pictures today.  Nothing really to photograph.  Next posting will most likely be Sunday night from Windsor in the UK.  With the time change, no one is likely to see the post until Tuesday morning.

Cheers until then.