Falmouth, England UK

Our last port on this cruise. It has been a very busy cruise with very few sea days and port after port. Many others on the trip have commented that they could have used a day of rest somewhere in the last week. We are feeling exhausted and are looking forward to our day of rest tomorrow.

Bob did another hike today. He said it was more of a strenuous walk but enjoyed hiking and not riding on a bus.

My tour was not until the afternoon so I took the shuttle into town. Their library had an art exhibit and I went to see it. It was about a town near here (did not write down the name) that had been a famous artist’s retreat for over 100 years. The paintings were of the town. There was a school group in one of the rooms working on their own art. It was a nice diversion for the morning.

My tour in the afternoon took me to the Roseland Peninsula. We had to use a small bus because the roads were very narrow and we had to take a ferry to cross the river. The area of Cornwall, where Falmouth is located, was chartered in 1661. Falmouth is the second largest city in Cornwall with a population of 20,000. The harbor is the 3rd largest natural harbor in the world, behind Rio and Sydney.

Many of the pretty houses in Falmouth were built by the sea captains who transported the mail in packet ships. The climate is subtropical with many palms and other plants I am used to seeing in Florida. This is because the Gulf Stream runs near to the coast here.

The main river is the Fal. It is tidal and has many salt marshes. Some of the places we passed the river was only a few feet wide. Our ferry crossing was at Harry Ferry. It was a chain ferry and once we and the other vehicles were loaded it only took about 10 minutes to cross the river.

The Roseland Peninsula was settled in the Bronze Age. The roads were very narrow, made even more so by the Cornish hedges. Many of them were taller than our coach. Our first stop was at St. Just in Roseland Church. The litch gate ( where they brought the corpses into the cemetery) was from 1530. We walked through the cemetery which is called the most beautiful graveyard. It was nice. The church itself was nice. The best part for me was all the needlepointed kneelers. Each one was lovely with a variety of patterns and themes. The church and graveyard were on the banks of a pond.

Our next stop was in the harbor town of St. Mawes. This area of Cornwall is called millionaires paradise. The houses looked lovely from the road and were perched on cliffs overlooking the harbor. One of the old homes has stones with the seals of Henry VIII and Anne Bolyne because they spent their honeymoon there.

Because of the harbor and location on the coast, the area was big in smuggling. The main things smuggled were brandy, gin and tea.

We then saw the famous round houses. These were built in the early 1800s by a religious group. They thought that if the houses were round, there would be no corners for the devil to hide in. They had thatched roofs.

When I got back to the ship, Bob said that he had a call from security to see if I was on board. He told them I was on one of their tours and apparently we were late. We got back about 10 minutes after the “all aboard” time.

It was a lovely day. Bright and sunny and interesting things to see.