Saturday, March 7, 2009
Cornwall
I slept well last night despite being a little chilly. The double comforter helped—I folded it in half since I was using only one side of my double bed. Waking at 6. 40 am, I was able to write my blog for a bit, then shower and dress and get ready for breakfast, which was served at 8. 30 am. We were antsy as our coach was scheduled to leave at 9 am and there was no way we could eat a full English breakfast in fifteen minutes. Still, after muesli and orange juice, we found space (and time) for scrambled eggs and bacon, sausage and tomato, hash browns and beans and warm buttered toast with coffee—basically, a heart attack on a platter. Why is it that full English breakfasts taste so much better when someone else has cooked and served them up to you? And why is it that we had to hurry through so scrumptious a meal?
Off to Eden:
Well, we did reach the Inn at 9 am and made our way to the coach with our students to start the long ride towards St. Austell to the Eden Project. This is one of the UK’s Millennium projects, the brainchild of Tim Smith who still remains its CEO. It was his plan to demonstrate man’s ability to live in harmony with nature and it took the form of a series of biodomes constructed out of recycled material to look like giant igloos. My view of it from the air as my plane was landing at Newquay will always remain unforgettable especially as you do not spy the domes until you are a mere two minutes away from them.
The biodomes are constructed in a former china clay pit that had long remained disused, demonstrating the fact that waste lands can also be put to practical use. Our coach parked and dropped us off and we were met by Eden Project staff who directed us to the Reception Center where we received stickers to indicate that we were ticket holders.
At this point, we were met by a botanist named Kathryn who conducted a tour for us through the Humid and Tropical Garden which is the largest and most spectacular of the biodomes. She took us around the world in a an hour as each part of the dome grows plants native to specific tropical parts of the world such as Malaysia, Africa, South America (the Rain Forest). The temperature in this part of the biodomes is considerably warmer and within seconds we were peeling off our jackets. Kathryn started with a very comprehensive introduction to the aims and objectives of the Project and once on the tour, stopped by select plants to point out their native requirements and to demonstrate their typical characteristics. A waterfall cascaded through the entire project and as we moved from one part of the world to the next, we climbed ever higher. The incredible design of the region inside the dome which maximizes the use of space was ingenious indeed and spoke very well of the thought and planning and effort that went into its making
One of the more interesting things I saw was a real cacao pod from a cacao tree that was freshly plucked off and then split open by one of the guides who showed us the cocoa butter and the seeds inside. We had a chance to hold it in our hands, smell it and find that it did not smell even remotely of chocolate. A great deal of processing has to be carried out before chocoholics like myself can find cocoa nirvana! We learned that it was in South America that the Incas drank chocolate after mixing it with pounded chilli. Chocolate as solidified in bars are a British invention, however, and for that we are all very grateful indeed! I also saw a Passion Flower for the first time and I have to say that it was strikingly vivid and rare.
For me, of course, taking a tour of the Tropical Forest felt a little bit like visiting India for I saw banana, papaya, cashew and mango trees and a host of herbs and spices that I use in my daily cooking—such as coriander and curry leaf, cardamom, cinnamon and turmeric.
Our tour ended in an hour and we were free to make our way into the Temperate and Mediterranean biodome where the emphasis was on the kind of plants and fruits that are grown in sunny but less intensely humid climes such as in Greece, Italy or Southern California. I saw a giant citrus fruit called a citron which hung from the branches but is not too heavy as it has very little pulp and juice. It is the peel that is mainly used today in cakes when candied peel is called for in a recipe. Lavender, olives, geraniums, etc. were in this area but, having seen the superb quality and variety of the tropical fruits and flowers in the first biodome, I was somewhat disappointed by the second which paled in comparison.
What was also marvelous was the large number of birds that I saw inside the domes though they are almost airtight. They seem to come in when people unwittingly leave doors open or, as Kathryn explained, often through the louvers in the domes that are occasionally opened for ventilation. They were incredibly tame and a robin came and almost ate out of my hand when I was seated in the café. The birdsong, the rushing downpour of the waterfall and the fragrance that surrounds the interior was so authentic as to make me feel as if I was on a cruise along the Amazon in Costa Rica. Truly, the achievement of the Eden Project is little short of brilliant and though I am neither a botanist nor a biologist but merely a humble gardener myself, I know I took back lessons on planting and harvesting techniques that I could easily use in my own cottage garden at home in Connecticut.
Then, it was time to sink into one of the squashy leather sofas in the café and to decide about getting a bite. Despite the fact that I had eaten a huge breakfast, I did not know how long it would be before I had my next meal and not willing to start feeling hungry, I ordered a pork and apple pasty and homemade chips. Just as I sat to eat those, along came Alice and I joined her and David at their table. The lunch was enormously filling though not very tasty and with a slight spray having started to fall, we left the Eden Project, boarded the coach again and set off for our next port of call—Tintagel.
In Search of Camelot—King Arthur’s Castle at Tintagel:
It was understandable that almost everyone in the coach was asleep as it made its way across Cornwall to take us to Tintagel Head and the ruined Castle that is supposed to be the legendary birthplace of King Arthur. I too closed my eyes and within minutes, I was deeply asleep as mist swirling over the fields had reduced visibility considerably.
When I awoke about a half hour later, we were negotiating our way through the narrowest lanes imaginable and we had several hair-raising moments as smaller vehicles had to back all the way out of the roads to make room for us. Indeed, at one point, we were told by a passer-by that our long coach would never make it through a narrow passage ahead. He suggested we turn back and take a wider road even if that meant a longer route. At another point, we almost slammed into a van that stopped suddenly ahead of us as a car in front of him came to a stop in order to make a sharp right turn. I swear that it was only a hair’s breath that separated us from this van as the coach came to a halt several seconds after our driver slammed on the brakes! It was certainly not the most enjoyable of rides and a colleague even commented, “This castle had better be the best one in the world”.
Well, no one could have been disappointed. Though we did arrive at the charming village of Tintagel a little behind schedule and with a light spray still playing over the region, it was quite the most spectacular natural sight I have seen in my yearlong travels. For Tintagel Head juts out into the Atlantic Ocean over a steep promontory that is composed almost entirely of slate. The English Heritage maintains and manages the site and, thanks to some ingenious engineering, a pathway has been cut through the rock escarpment to allow visitors to access the ruins of the castle, the mansion and the little houses that belong to Arthurian Legend.
This site is not for the faint hearted as we needed to make our way down into a very low ravine first to get to the bottom where the Visitors Center in located. At this lowest point itself, the swirling waters of the ocean crash into rocks creating large caves that remain battered by the sea’s fury. The steps are repeatedly lashed by these jade green waves and scaling them takes courage and grit. At one point, you actually cross a bridge that connects the mainland with the tiny rocky island on which the majority of the ruins are to be found. All these locations make superb settings for photography and it is difficult to know where to stop in selecting sights for celluloid. To add to the mystery and the aura of the Arthurian legends, mist swirled softly around the peaks and a light spray from the churning waves cooled us off after the long climb.
Our students bounded along the steps, the setting making them light hearted as they were struck by the remoteness of the crags and the complete isolation of the pathway leading to the peaks. The steps were very high indeed and I had a hard time trying to climb them as strong winds whipped around us. Fortunately, it was not too cold and the climb to the top had served to warm me well. I did reach as far as the mansion of Earl Richard who was supposed to be the brother of King Arthur. I also saw the Great Hall of what would have been his mansion, the gateway leading to it--much of which was reconstructed in the 19th century when the pre-Raphaelites began to paint scenes from the stories of Thomas Malory’s 16th century work Morte D’Arthur which, in turn, led to Tennyson’s collection of Arthur poems called The Idylls of the King.
Of course, even as I surveyed the ruins in their fairy-tale setting, I was conscious of the fact that there is very little we know with historical certainty about King Arthur. Did he really exist? Is he a creation based on several different ancient Cornish kings of England? Very little archaeological evidence exists to answer these questions in any definitive way. What has been found at the site are Mediterranean pottery pieces that suggest strong trading links between England the Middle East in ancient times.
There was a great deal more I could have seen including the ruins of a walled garden and a little church at the very top, but somehow I did not trust my feet to carry me all the way to the peak. In fact, I was more afraid of making my way downhill and since we had a deadline for returning to the coach and I did not want to keep anyone waiting, I began the slow descent to the base reminded constantly, by the remoteness of the venue and the heights we had scaled, of Ireland’s Cliffs of Moher.
At the base, I had the pleasure of watching a film in the Visitors Center that gave some more information about the combination of myth and historical account that has led to the creation of the Arthurian Legends and the industry that they have spawned—if one went by the end-of-daybusiness being carried out in the little shops that comprise the village of Tintagel. I did visit a couple of them to purchase a magnet and some postcards, then poked my head into a bakery selling pasties and a tea room where a few of our students had settled themselves down with Cornish cream teas. I was too full to face the thought of another morsel for a while and looked forward to a good dinner instead, later in the day.
The bus ride back took us on the ‘Atlantic Highway’, a dual carriageway that ran through the length of Central Cornwall passing fairly close to Padstow en route. Back at the coach station at close to 6pm, I parted company with my colleagues and decided that it would be a good idea to stretch out and try to even get a short nap in my room at Sunnyside Hotel before we met in the lobby at 7. 30 pm for dinner.
When 7.30 pm approached, I prepared for dinner and meeting my colleagues in the hotel’s lobby, we decided to eat dinner at The New Harbor Restaurant where we had eaten last night. David and Alice bowed out, having consumed a light dinner earlier in the evening, leaving Valerie and me to find our way to the harbor and to settle ourselves at a table overlooking the boats on the dark and dimly lit waterfront.
A Seafood Dinner to Die For:
I ordered a scrumpy (apple cider) but the restaurant did not carry it. They suggested a pear cider instead made by a Cornish farm named Heany and never having tasted pear cider before, I was up for it. It was absolutely delicious and very refreshing indeed. Valerie had a glass of house white wine and ordered the Crab Trio that she had enjoyed yesterday (salad, bisque and timbale). I went for the Lobster and Prawn Cocktail which was very fresh and very good, crammed full of small prawns and lobster tail in a light mayonnaise dressing. For mains, both of us had the grilled cod with saffron mash and baby spinach in a saffron cream sauce—very fresh, very tasty and very hearty indeed. David joined us just when we were finishing our mains and ordered pudding. Since the sticky toffee pudding that Alice had ordered was so good yesterday, I decided to go with it and indeed it was great—with a generous dollop of Cornish clotted cream served alongside. This melted against the warmth of the pudding and formed a gooey mass in the toffee base. Ah, heavenly!
I was seriously worried that I would be too stuffed to make the long uphill trek to our hotel, but climb it I did and had only enough energy to complete this blog and throw myself on the bed for a good night’s rest.
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