As promised, here are pictures of the beaches from our vacation. And no, I got absolutely no swimming in. Unfortunately, I found a wonderful little beach in Cornwall on the second to last day, and couldn't arrange a safe swim. (I'm kind of against swimming in unknown, or any, territory alone.)
So here's the first beach, from the Isle of Harris, in the Outer Hebrides, in the Western Isles of Scotland. To repeat: we could not get to the beach. We found an overlook from which to take these stunning shots. We are about 100 feet above the water:
Yours truly, in my Harris wool hand-made Scottish sweater
We rented a house in Stornoway, a beautiful port town on the Isle of Lewis. Not sure how the swimming would be there, but the water looked clean. Here's a shot of the harbor. Oh, sorry, I mean, harbour.
We drove to see the Callanish Stones, a prehistoric stone formation older than the pyramids. On the way, we passed through some beautiful Scottish villages, with lochs (a fancy word for lake) peppered throughout the countryside. Here's my favorite. I dream of a quite retirement near lakes like this, where I can swim every morning before breakfast.
Next, Cornwall. We stayed in a harbour village called Mevagissey, with some of the smallest "roads" I've ever seen:
Yes, buses get through there
Cornwall was a step up from the Hebrides, as far as quantity of inhabitants is concerned. We happened to be in Mevagissey for their feast week, which was fun. Lots of activity all week, to include concerts and raft races. People from all over Cornwall, and perhaps the rest of England, came to Mevagissey last week.
We took little trips out of Mevagissey, since we didn't bother getting a rental car. We took a ferry to Fowey (pronounced /foi/), a quaint fishing village northeast of Mevagissey. As we arrived, the ferry driver mentioned that the school kids every year swim from the neighboring village of Polruan to Fowey and back. I just missed that. Damn.
Polruan, as seen from Fowey
This is the beach we discovered only a half-mile from Mevagissey.
The village of Portmellon
And a launch of a Cornish gig, or flashboat from the same beach. We saw advertisements for other gig crews in villages close by; they race each other:
We found a nice secluded beach while walking to Trenarren. The kids had a blast, and I wished I had packed my swim suit/wetsuit.
This was a great time, the kids didn't want to leave this beach, but we had to march the 2-3 miles back to Mevagissey to go shopping for touristy stuff. It was our last day of vacation, and we had to get up at 4:30 am the next morning to get to Newquay airport to start our trek back to Moscow. Unlike the start of our vacation (I'll talk about that someday, preferably after many beers), the flights back home were uneventful. Now, I can't wait until the pool opens in the morning so I can get back to swimming!
Happy 4th to all 4 (or 5?) of my readers out there!
Stunning, just stunning! What a wonderful trip for the kids to see these tiny towns in another country. Some day they will be grateful and tell their children of the wonderful trips their parents took them on. Glad you had a great trip!! Happy 4th from Houston!! We love you all! HUGS!!
Signed,
One of 4 Readers
Posted by: Lisa Coltharp | 04 July 2011 at 06:05