Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Cornwall

We just got back from a wonderful week in Cornwall. We all loved it even though S. had her moments when she wanted to return to ENGLAND (no typo!) to be with her friends.

Our hotel was fab, with nice rooms, a pool and a million things to do for kids. In addition it was centrally located so that we could do several day trips covering large parts of Cornwall without to much hassle. Our favorite spot was Tintagel, the ruins of an old castle on the rugged cliffs on the northern coast of Cornwall. We spend nearly the whole day walking around and admiring the fantastic scenery, having a cup a tea and scones at the little cafe and playing at the beach. We also had long conversations with S. about the the person that falls of a cliff on the sign "dangerous cliffs". She just couldn´t stop worrying about his fate and wanted to know who he was and what happened to him.

Tintagel:




On our first day we took a trip down to the southern part of Cornwall to visit St. Yves, a nice fishing village well worth a little stroll. Beware of the Tate Museum though, it has an awesome cafe but M. and I agreed upon that the museum was one of the worst we´ve been to.

We also went to the beach at one of the National trust sites to have S. test her new kite. She liked it for about 2 min but then water, sand, bucket and shovel were much more appealing and daddy got to play with it instead (he didn´t mind though). Unfortunately I didn´t juggle beach + 2 kids running off in different directions + a daddy who swapped focus from kids to kite very professionally and after about 20 min both girls were wet and dirty and we had to return to the car. I usually bring an extra set of clothing for the kids but of course not this time. We suddenly stood without pants for S. and she ended up wearing I. instead. They were rather short and looked a bit funny but she wore them with style and everything was fine in the end. ;)

The kids at the beach:



In the evening we had a really delicious dinner at a restaurant in Truro called "Kathmandu". They have Nepalese and Indian cuisine and are very child friendly. The only thing that I reacted upon was the owner, with whom I just couldn´t warm up. He first astonished me by looking at our two girls and telling us at the same time that he was BLESSED with three boys. "Yes, 3 boys, I am so fortunate". Even though I don´t really care I thought that was a strange thing to say to people who come to your restaurant. Our conversations didn´t really improve and I finally totally spoiled our chances to remove those little invisible but noticeable spikes from the atmosphere by asking if the man in one of the pictures on the wall was him (a 70´s pic). Well, as you might already have guessed it wasn´t. Instead we were looking at the former king of Nepal. After this lecture, the owner turned around, started to walk away and hissed "he was shot". It almost felt like he wished the same fate upon me for not knowing. ;)

The kathedral in Truro

The kids fell asleep in the car on the way home and the quiet evening that M. and I had been looking forward to did not become reality since they were up and running once we returned to the hotel. The champagne that we had with us remained thus untouched in the fridge (where it stayed for the whole week) and we had chips and apple juice instead, while watching Robin Hood.
Next day we visited Tintagel, which I already mentioned. For the 3rd day we had scheduled Eden Project, a really cool garden.

Different from most other "traditional" gardens, Eden is composed of two main biomes; one tropic one mediterranean, which reminded me of alien housing, as they look like they are from outer space. The largest biome is really fascinating with huge tropical trees, magnificent waterfalls, tropical huts (S. favorite) and informative plaques giving details on the different plants, their life-styles, threats, uses etc. Very nicely done. The other biome is similar though a lot less humid. S. decided that it was interesting but too quiet and started (to peoples amusement) singing made-up opera pieces while standing on a big rock. It was hilarious.





In the evening we decided to have a take-away dinner at the hotel. M. had spotted a Dominos Pizza place in Newquay and went to get us two nice pizzas, which reminded us of our time in the US.

1 comment:

  1. Great post! Made me laugh several times!
    "+ a daddy who swapped focus from kids to kite very professionally" Awesomely written, haha.
    Hugs, M

    ReplyDelete