Truro

Cornwall is really not about city life at all. It’s all fishing villages and rolling hills covered with pastures for sheep and dairy cows. Its largest cities have less than 25,000 people. Where they do have town centers, however, they do a nice job with the pedestrian areas, and Truro is a great example of that. It’s the county town off Cornwall which is like the capital, and it has some impressive buildings in its town center especially the Truro Cathedral. Its High Street is a bustling shopping district. All around the cathedral the streets are closed off to traffic except for taxis and buses. As in all of the English towns I’ve been to, there’s a nice mix of department stores, famous brands, local boutiques, and charity shops. I love the charity shops because they always have a used book section and I’ve been donating books as I read them and then picking up the next one for a pound or sometimes less. Each town has had four or five of these shops run by national charities. The hidden benefit seems to be that they give the town’s elderly people someplace to browse. It’s a simple thing, but that’s one big difference I see in the UK — their seniors are on the go. They walk to the town center — some with walkers and lots with canes — and they go browsing. They wave to one another, stop and chat, and greet the store owners as they enter. It’s all very sweet except when they’re elbowing me out of the way when we’re sharing limited space in the book section of the Red Cross store. They’re British so it’s a polite elbow — less pointed.Leggi altro