Travel: Stonehedge, Torquay, Greenway House & Port Isaac
Okay, we didn't head straight to Torquay. In fact, we drove towards Stonehedge instead. It was a long drive from Eastbourne and even though we had left early, it was pretty crowded when we got there. A major tip if you're going to visit Stonehedge: pre-book your tickets! There is two lines and the one for pre-booked tickets was practically non-existent while us without had a long queue because we didn't plan ahead.
They had a visitor centre but we headed straight for the shuttle busses that would take us to the Stonehedge, approximately 2 km down the road. It's possible to walk it but we couldn't be bothered and didn't want to waste the time.
I didn't expect Stonehedge to be gated but I probably should have. It wouldn't take long before people would destroy it unintentionally by touching it or even worse by scratching things into the stone on purpose. Still, the "fence" around it was about 30 cm. tall so it was more of a statement than anything.
In the end, it's a bunch of rocks arranged in a certain way but when you think about just how old it is, it becomes much more impressive. We still don't know with any certainty what Stonehedge is supposed to mean and it's probably one of those mysteries that will never be solved. Amongst my family we agreed that this was built to be the very first round-about. If you don't know, English roads have a lot of round-a-bouts at least compared to the Danish roads. We joked along that people had misunderstood Stonehedge to be about the solstice and sacrifice and should have used it for a giant round-about. In hindsight, maybe our joke wasn't so funny but trust me, it was at the time when we where tired of driving around in those things.
When we got back to the visitor's centre, we strolled around casually reading about it and its history. I'm not really one for museums that just are photos and words on a wall, because it instantly bores me even if the history is exciting.
What I did find exciting though, was a model of how they transported the huge rocks. They from a vehicle of a sort that would roll on tree trunks. What I wondered even more was how exactly they managed to get the rocks on top of each other. We could see that they were fitted together in the sense that they had a bit sticking out at the top and then a hole in the other that would lay on top. My family and I joked that this was the very first LEGO set. You see as Danes, we're very proud of our LEGO (which if you didn't know is the combination of the words "Leg godt" which means "Play well") but we pondered if maybe the creator had been to visit Stonehedge and seen the way they fitted together. I mean probably not, but it was a funny discussion.
Having finished with Stonehedge, we drove onwards to Torquay. On the way, we pondered how exactly to pronounce it and came up with many weird suggestions. My little brother settled on calling it Toyota which he continued to do throughout our stay. In reality it was pronounced Tor-kay as we soon learned when we checked in to the Norwood Guesthouse, a guesthouse very like the one we had just left. This one was run by a very friendly set of sisters that went above and beyond in trying to make our stay good.
Having dropped off our things at the guesthouse, we ventured on a walk around Torquay and walked past many shops that was closed for the day but my mother was very excited to explore them following day. We also walked by the local Abbey although that was closed as well. A lot of places seemed to close fairly early in England. Torquay seemed like a lovely place and very picturesque which was why I took quite a few photos.
The weather was finally clearing up and as a response my father had chosen to wear red shorts and a white T-shirt that was fairly see-through. My mother deemed that unfit for a restaurant and he was sent home to change before we headed out for dinner. I, myself, had finally gotten out of my jeans and thrown on a dress, showing my very pale legs.
The next day, we headed towards Agatha Christie's holiday home which was located nearby. We had planned on taking a bus there but the bus had been broken down for a while and they were still waiting for the spare parts. So into our rental car we hopped and drove there instead.
When we neared we could see that the parking signs seemed to be for only for people who pre-booked. We decided to ignore it and drive on because what else could we do? When we got there we slowly drove up to the bar and the man standing by it. He asked us for which time we had booked parking and we quietly told him that we hadn't know that you needed to pre-book because we were visiting from Denmark. He seemed very interested in that and gladly let us through. He was very nice, possible because he thought we were confused tourist (pretty true) and because we arrived before the place even opened. We parked the car and walked around the outer ground for a fifteen minutes or so until they let us in. We started by visiting the house and it was surely something.
As fans of Downton Abbey, my mother, little brother and I could see a lot of similarities, although a few differences too. Obviously the house was much smaller than the fictional Downton but it had a lot of the same stuff, like bells to ring for servants, a drawing room, a sitting room and so on. In almost every room was a staff member, partly to make sure we didn't touch anything and partly to share stories and answer questions, which was really nice. We even got to hear Agatha's voice on a recorder, which apparently was a rarity because she was quite shy.
After having explored the house, we headed down to the boathouse and then proceeded to the garden. The grounds were really, really lovely and the place seemed huge. We also went into the gift shop where we bought her novel Dead Man's Folly which features Hercule Priot and is set at a place based on Greenway House. As I'm writing this I'm over halfway through the book and can't wait to see how it ends.
I've never really read any of her novels before except one featuring Miss Marble. I haven't been an avid watcher of any of the televised version of her novels either but I do know about her two most famous characters, both of which I've mentioned above. I know a lot about them because my mother absolutely loves her books, and especially Hercule Pirot.
It was pleasantly warm at around noon and felt like a nice summer day. We headed back to Torquay where we wanted to have lunch before going to the beach and try to get into the water at least once during our holiday. We debated between two places but ultimately choose The Singing Kettle.
This time I did go for a tea as well as a scone. Since I'm not the biggest tea drinker I choose something that wasn't so strong; a fruit tea with strawberry and kiwi. It tasted very nice and looked even prettier.
After our lunch, we split up as my mother wanted to explore the shops on her own. The other three of us went down to the water but by now the temperature and the sun had gone away. We sat down on a pair of rented beach chairs but to be frank, the beach is kind of bland when it's overcast and chilly. I think we spent a total of five minutes on it before we walked back to the hotel to relax instead.
After and hour and a half, mother joined us and was in a bad mood because she had gotten so lost that she hadn't even been able to find in which direction the ocean was. To be fair, my mother and I share the trait of not having any sense of direction what so ever. I could easily done same.
We had a play to watch and we drove to Paignton, the neighbouring town to Torquay. I had booked us tickets over the phone while we had walked around waiting for Greenway House to open and we arrived early to pick them up. Then we walked around nearby trying to find a place to eat and stumbled across a bar that had curry night on Thursdays, which was perfect as both my father and little brother love curry.
Also, I think I forgot to mention that the play we were going to see was called The Hollow and made by Agatha Christie. It seemed only fitting after having spend the day exploring her holiday home that we would end it with one of her plays. This was a bit of a bigger cast and more dramatic as the first act ended with a murder! For this one, I must confess I had not guessed who the murderer was and that had annoyed me a bit. But it was still a very good play and it had that Agatha Christie vibe with the long list of suspects and the isolation from newcomers, which means that it has to be one of the people in the house.
The following morning, we had our last breakfast in the guesthouse and began our last day together all four. We were meant to be together all the time but my father had to go home for work, so he would miss the last three days of the holiday where we were staying in London. But our trip as a foursome was far from over because we embarked on a long, long car journey.
Another fictional character that is well loved in my family, by all members, is Sherlock Holmes. As we were fairly near Dartmoor where the story of the Hound of the Baskerville stems from, my brother really wanted to see it. So first thing, we drove towards it. It took a while but when we got there, I must say I was surprise.
The area was firstly humongous, or dare I say gigantic (name that Sherlock reference), and very green. More green than I had expected by oh, so pretty, especially with the stone hedges everywhere. We also saw quite a lot of sheep. We turned in on a little flattened area next to the road and got out and breathed in the fresh air.
Near by a flock of sheep grazed and along side them an old pony. Being horse people, my mother and I of course tried to go over to the pony and say hello to it. It wasn't having that, it wasn't afraid of us or anything but it just lazily walked away when we approached. Maybe it thought that we were going to make it work. My mother and I agreed that this wasn't the worst pension for a horse. We assumed it was its pension as the pony looked rather old.
We were quite on a tight schedule because we had another location to visit and then the long drive to Heathrow and a flight that would leave without my father if he was not on time. He had originally planned a surprise for my mother but of course, she had already guessed what it was.
We drove to Port Isaac, where the television series Doc Martin, which both I and my parents enjoy, is filmed. However, due to the time pressure, we had less than an hour to spend when we arrived. Promptly upon arrival my mother and little brother bought ice cream and apparently, it was so excellent that my mother wouldn't stop talking about it for days. She had gotten salty caramel and I had a lick; I mean it was good but I didn't think it as heavenly as she did.
We rushed through the slim streets of Port Isaac to get down to the port. It was funny to actually be in a place that we'd seen on TV so many times. However, Port Isaac is a huge tourist attraction for obvious reasons and I didn't mind that we didn't spend too much time there.
Onwards we drove headed towards London to hand in the car and see my father off. And I think I'm going to save that for the last blog post.
Again, if I'm to give any recommendations it would be these:
- Stonehedge is a must see, just because it's Stonehedge and PRE-BOOK your tickets! Just don't be surprise that it's a pile of rocks nicely arranged (I know it's much more than that because of its history but still).
- Again I would recommend going to a teahouse and seeing a local play, it was still really fun the second time around.
- If you like Agatha Christie, then you'll have fun visiting Greenway House, especially if you've read Dead Man's Folly - it's amazing having seen the place and now reading about it through her words.
And that'll be it. I liked everything that we did but these would be the places/things I would recommend the most. Two down, one to go! Am I actually going to be able to do this? We'll see.
I didn't expect Stonehedge to be gated but I probably should have. It wouldn't take long before people would destroy it unintentionally by touching it or even worse by scratching things into the stone on purpose. Still, the "fence" around it was about 30 cm. tall so it was more of a statement than anything.
In the end, it's a bunch of rocks arranged in a certain way but when you think about just how old it is, it becomes much more impressive. We still don't know with any certainty what Stonehedge is supposed to mean and it's probably one of those mysteries that will never be solved. Amongst my family we agreed that this was built to be the very first round-about. If you don't know, English roads have a lot of round-a-bouts at least compared to the Danish roads. We joked along that people had misunderstood Stonehedge to be about the solstice and sacrifice and should have used it for a giant round-about. In hindsight, maybe our joke wasn't so funny but trust me, it was at the time when we where tired of driving around in those things.
When we got back to the visitor's centre, we strolled around casually reading about it and its history. I'm not really one for museums that just are photos and words on a wall, because it instantly bores me even if the history is exciting.
What I did find exciting though, was a model of how they transported the huge rocks. They from a vehicle of a sort that would roll on tree trunks. What I wondered even more was how exactly they managed to get the rocks on top of each other. We could see that they were fitted together in the sense that they had a bit sticking out at the top and then a hole in the other that would lay on top. My family and I joked that this was the very first LEGO set. You see as Danes, we're very proud of our LEGO (which if you didn't know is the combination of the words "Leg godt" which means "Play well") but we pondered if maybe the creator had been to visit Stonehedge and seen the way they fitted together. I mean probably not, but it was a funny discussion.
Having finished with Stonehedge, we drove onwards to Torquay. On the way, we pondered how exactly to pronounce it and came up with many weird suggestions. My little brother settled on calling it Toyota which he continued to do throughout our stay. In reality it was pronounced Tor-kay as we soon learned when we checked in to the Norwood Guesthouse, a guesthouse very like the one we had just left. This one was run by a very friendly set of sisters that went above and beyond in trying to make our stay good.
Having dropped off our things at the guesthouse, we ventured on a walk around Torquay and walked past many shops that was closed for the day but my mother was very excited to explore them following day. We also walked by the local Abbey although that was closed as well. A lot of places seemed to close fairly early in England. Torquay seemed like a lovely place and very picturesque which was why I took quite a few photos.
The weather was finally clearing up and as a response my father had chosen to wear red shorts and a white T-shirt that was fairly see-through. My mother deemed that unfit for a restaurant and he was sent home to change before we headed out for dinner. I, myself, had finally gotten out of my jeans and thrown on a dress, showing my very pale legs.
The next day, we headed towards Agatha Christie's holiday home which was located nearby. We had planned on taking a bus there but the bus had been broken down for a while and they were still waiting for the spare parts. So into our rental car we hopped and drove there instead.
When we neared we could see that the parking signs seemed to be for only for people who pre-booked. We decided to ignore it and drive on because what else could we do? When we got there we slowly drove up to the bar and the man standing by it. He asked us for which time we had booked parking and we quietly told him that we hadn't know that you needed to pre-book because we were visiting from Denmark. He seemed very interested in that and gladly let us through. He was very nice, possible because he thought we were confused tourist (pretty true) and because we arrived before the place even opened. We parked the car and walked around the outer ground for a fifteen minutes or so until they let us in. We started by visiting the house and it was surely something.
As fans of Downton Abbey, my mother, little brother and I could see a lot of similarities, although a few differences too. Obviously the house was much smaller than the fictional Downton but it had a lot of the same stuff, like bells to ring for servants, a drawing room, a sitting room and so on. In almost every room was a staff member, partly to make sure we didn't touch anything and partly to share stories and answer questions, which was really nice. We even got to hear Agatha's voice on a recorder, which apparently was a rarity because she was quite shy.
After having explored the house, we headed down to the boathouse and then proceeded to the garden. The grounds were really, really lovely and the place seemed huge. We also went into the gift shop where we bought her novel Dead Man's Folly which features Hercule Priot and is set at a place based on Greenway House. As I'm writing this I'm over halfway through the book and can't wait to see how it ends.
I've never really read any of her novels before except one featuring Miss Marble. I haven't been an avid watcher of any of the televised version of her novels either but I do know about her two most famous characters, both of which I've mentioned above. I know a lot about them because my mother absolutely loves her books, and especially Hercule Pirot.
It was pleasantly warm at around noon and felt like a nice summer day. We headed back to Torquay where we wanted to have lunch before going to the beach and try to get into the water at least once during our holiday. We debated between two places but ultimately choose The Singing Kettle.
This time I did go for a tea as well as a scone. Since I'm not the biggest tea drinker I choose something that wasn't so strong; a fruit tea with strawberry and kiwi. It tasted very nice and looked even prettier.
After our lunch, we split up as my mother wanted to explore the shops on her own. The other three of us went down to the water but by now the temperature and the sun had gone away. We sat down on a pair of rented beach chairs but to be frank, the beach is kind of bland when it's overcast and chilly. I think we spent a total of five minutes on it before we walked back to the hotel to relax instead.
After and hour and a half, mother joined us and was in a bad mood because she had gotten so lost that she hadn't even been able to find in which direction the ocean was. To be fair, my mother and I share the trait of not having any sense of direction what so ever. I could easily done same.
We had a play to watch and we drove to Paignton, the neighbouring town to Torquay. I had booked us tickets over the phone while we had walked around waiting for Greenway House to open and we arrived early to pick them up. Then we walked around nearby trying to find a place to eat and stumbled across a bar that had curry night on Thursdays, which was perfect as both my father and little brother love curry.
Also, I think I forgot to mention that the play we were going to see was called The Hollow and made by Agatha Christie. It seemed only fitting after having spend the day exploring her holiday home that we would end it with one of her plays. This was a bit of a bigger cast and more dramatic as the first act ended with a murder! For this one, I must confess I had not guessed who the murderer was and that had annoyed me a bit. But it was still a very good play and it had that Agatha Christie vibe with the long list of suspects and the isolation from newcomers, which means that it has to be one of the people in the house.
The following morning, we had our last breakfast in the guesthouse and began our last day together all four. We were meant to be together all the time but my father had to go home for work, so he would miss the last three days of the holiday where we were staying in London. But our trip as a foursome was far from over because we embarked on a long, long car journey.
Another fictional character that is well loved in my family, by all members, is Sherlock Holmes. As we were fairly near Dartmoor where the story of the Hound of the Baskerville stems from, my brother really wanted to see it. So first thing, we drove towards it. It took a while but when we got there, I must say I was surprise.
The area was firstly humongous, or dare I say gigantic (name that Sherlock reference), and very green. More green than I had expected by oh, so pretty, especially with the stone hedges everywhere. We also saw quite a lot of sheep. We turned in on a little flattened area next to the road and got out and breathed in the fresh air.
Near by a flock of sheep grazed and along side them an old pony. Being horse people, my mother and I of course tried to go over to the pony and say hello to it. It wasn't having that, it wasn't afraid of us or anything but it just lazily walked away when we approached. Maybe it thought that we were going to make it work. My mother and I agreed that this wasn't the worst pension for a horse. We assumed it was its pension as the pony looked rather old.
We were quite on a tight schedule because we had another location to visit and then the long drive to Heathrow and a flight that would leave without my father if he was not on time. He had originally planned a surprise for my mother but of course, she had already guessed what it was.
We drove to Port Isaac, where the television series Doc Martin, which both I and my parents enjoy, is filmed. However, due to the time pressure, we had less than an hour to spend when we arrived. Promptly upon arrival my mother and little brother bought ice cream and apparently, it was so excellent that my mother wouldn't stop talking about it for days. She had gotten salty caramel and I had a lick; I mean it was good but I didn't think it as heavenly as she did.
We rushed through the slim streets of Port Isaac to get down to the port. It was funny to actually be in a place that we'd seen on TV so many times. However, Port Isaac is a huge tourist attraction for obvious reasons and I didn't mind that we didn't spend too much time there.
Onwards we drove headed towards London to hand in the car and see my father off. And I think I'm going to save that for the last blog post.
Again, if I'm to give any recommendations it would be these:
- Stonehedge is a must see, just because it's Stonehedge and PRE-BOOK your tickets! Just don't be surprise that it's a pile of rocks nicely arranged (I know it's much more than that because of its history but still).
- Again I would recommend going to a teahouse and seeing a local play, it was still really fun the second time around.
- If you like Agatha Christie, then you'll have fun visiting Greenway House, especially if you've read Dead Man's Folly - it's amazing having seen the place and now reading about it through her words.
And that'll be it. I liked everything that we did but these would be the places/things I would recommend the most. Two down, one to go! Am I actually going to be able to do this? We'll see.
Comments
Post a Comment