Sun August 12 - Manchester to Exeter vian Bath & the Cotswolds

Moderatly early morning after an late evening listening to the upstairs neighbors party hardy on a Saturday night.  At one point we finally had to go up and ask them to tone it down.  In all fairness they were nice and did turn it down but they didn't finish up until 1am.  Ah well they need to unwind too after a week of working.

We took a slightly different route than the one above - we didn't drive through the Cotswolds and down at the 43 Okehampton (Exeter) we went direct down to Exeter and back again not the long route.  We were limited on time today - we had to check in before 4pm in Exeter (being a Sunday they shut up the front desk early).  So we drove directly to Bath found a nice little place to eat.

Some of the architecture in Bath

View from the restaurant we ate at

Ate a proper roast beef, yorkshire and gravy - it was good!  Although Kels wasn't impressed with the yorkshire, he said he liked mine better ;)

The famous row houses on Royal Crescent - turns out the place we ate at was right on the corner and we took a short walk down to see it and take a pic.

After lunch and taking some pics we started the drive down to Exeter.  We would be driving through anyway so we decided to check in to the hotel and then it wouldn't matter what time we got back and could take our time seeing Tintagel Castle.  In Exeter we checked in and took up some of the luggage, plugged in the laptop and then hopped back on the road for the hour and a half drive down to Tintagel.

The roads down to Tintagel were narrow with rather large hedges on either side.

Once in down in Tintagel, we quickly discovered how much of a tourist area it was.  We found a large parking lot at the top and parked for one pound.  We got out our rain coats - it had been raining on and off today - and headed down to the ticket office.  We have the English Heritage pass so didn't have to pay but you still have to check in and get a receipt.  They have a couple of land rovers to take you down to the bottom or back up but it is run by another company and costs so we hoofed it.  It was a steep slope down, then leveled off then a ridiculously steep stair case down then a ridiculously steep stair case back up to the island level.  That's just one way.  The slate steps were a tad treacherous so we had to be extra careful.  Built half on the mainland and half on a jagged headland projecting into the Cornish Sea, Tintagel Castle is one of the most spectacular historic sites in Britain.  Its association with King Arthur makes it also one of the most famous but the history of the site stretches back centuries before the first tales of Arthur.  There isn't much of a keep or ruins here so it's a little tougher to see where things might have been located but the island itself was spectacular.  After various excavations over the years,  Tintagel is now know to have been inhabited at least since the fifth century.  It was part of the trading network of the Mediterranean world and the site of an extensive and prosperous community before Richard of Cornwall built his castle.  The legend of Arthur Pendragon and the site of Tintagel have become welded together throughout the centuries.  It was a connection that was invented by Geoffrey of Monmouth in the 12th century but the island and  ruins are enough to conjure up images of ancient heroes.  

Even through the intermittent rain it was easy to see how literary personages like Tennyson and Thomas Hardy could envision the great keep of Camelot and write about it basing it from here.  The rocky island is just big enough that a keep would have stood majestically but at the same time would have been a perfect seat for one such as Arthur Pendragon.  We quite enjoyed scampering around this rock and the sea view were just unbelievable.

Walking up to what would have been the gate house

Kels coming up over one of the rises on the island

 

Looking up at one of the curtain walls

Looking down at Merlin's Cave

The stairs going down to go back up

Merlin's Cave - the tide was in so we couldn't explore

Merlin's Cave

The rocky coastline on one side of the island

The gatehouse

What's left of Richard's great hall

Entryway

This was a  walled in garden.  There are some that believe that the tale of Tristan and Iseult were based from this garden.

Looking off into the distance to the west

King Arthur statue at the head of the island

The face (sorry rain got on the lens)

The large building to the left back is Camelot Hotel built in 1899

Leaving the island and heading back down the stairs again

Looking back up from the mainland.

Behind the campers is a perfect expample of  English countryside.

Our room in Exeter

It was a good day despite the rain and it was interesting to be able to extract fact from fiction about this castle ruins and learn a little more about some of the history here.

Up next: Stonehenge, Arundel Castle, Cliffs of Dover and London!