Cornwall Weekend: Recap

So this weekend, all of ASE packed up and went to Cornwall. Cornwall is in the southern part of Britain, but is not part of England. After a long five hour bus ride, we arrived in Tintagel, the birthplace of King Arthur. Though not much of the castle is left, the mountain that it is on is absolutely stunning. The water is unbelievably blue and the view from the top tremendous. We wanted to go and explore what is thought to be Merlin's Cave, but high tide prevented that. Instead, we walked over to another set of caves. Though I opted to stay dry on the shore, a few other people ventured in. After Tintagel, we had a three hour bus drive to where we were staying, a sleepy little fishing town called Coverack. To give you an idea of how small the town was, our group filled up the youth hostel, two bed and breakfasts, and part of the only hotel (and pub). There I got to have my first taste of a Cornish pasty (pronounced p-ah-sty), which is essentially meet and potatoes wrapped in a flakey crust. Quite delicious. The next day, after having a traditional English breakfast at the hostel, we left for The Lizard, the southern most part of Britain. There, we took a three hour hike along the beautiful, hilly coastline with a guide who could easily host Survivor Man. After a quick lunch in the bus, we went to St. Ives, a very pretty costal town nearby. There, I went to the Tate Gallery of Modern Art, played frisbee on the beach (turns out there's some Ultimate players from Skidmore in our group and one of the ASE faculty members started the team at Oxford and played for the English national team), and lastly, went to sculptor Barbra Hepworth's house, which is now a museum and gallery of her work. That night, we had BBQ and ate Cornish clotted cream ice cream, the highest fat (yet most delicious) ice cream possible. This morning it was our plan to hike up a hill in Widcombe-in-the-Moor to see a view of the countryside, but rain prohibited that (luckily, the previous two days' forecast for heavy rain had been wrong), so we took the bus straight back to Bath. Now it's back to work for the week, with papers in both of my classes due on Thursday. The exciting thing however is that because I'm here during the Euro Cup, there's a lot of football, including a huge World Cup rematch between Italy and France with the winner advancing to the next round. I'll be sure to post updates as interesting things happen, but until then, thanks for reading!
Tintangel

Merlin's Cave

The view of the coast from our hostel in Coverack

The Lizard

St. Ives