Falmouth

10/4 Falmouth, Cornwall – woke early to see the white lighthouse floating by, then we could see St Mawes across the river with its castle, and then tied up in Falmouth. All passengers had to present passports to British Immigration so we had a strict order, our group was last so all filed across the stage in front of five officers, showed our passports to one of them and got looked at closely, then had a red dot put on our ship ID card, handed passports to the crew and we were able to leave. We’ll get the passports back on Wednesday when we get back into EU territory.

It was a free morning, hadn’t quite decided what to do but saw a lovely pirate offering a history tour at 11am so told him we’d be back, went for a short walk to the St Mawes Ferry and spent 20 minutes each way across and back St Mawes/Falmouth. It was a bit lumpy crossing the River Fal, or in fact the Carrick Roads which is the third deepest natural harbour in the world after Sydney and ??not sure of the second. Rumour has it if Scotland leaves the UK they will be looking for a new submarine base….Falmouth looks promising!

We stayed on board due to timing but the little trip was worth it, it’s a pretty little town with white houses strung along the shore and slopes, St Mawes Castle on the headland where apparently Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn once stayed. There were three crazy people swimming, we saw them strip off, jump in and pretty quickly jump out again, one went back for a second dive then out.

https://www.falmouthuncovered.co.uk/
The tour with Pirate Will started at the Killigrew monument, a granite pyramid in the middle of a pretty little green park, across from what was once the home of John Killigrew then his descendants (all called John) who were initially pirates…….no, actually the more polite privateers…….who had a licence to rob and plunder from their base in rural Falmouth. Then in 1613 Sir Walter Raleigh came to visit and suggested to John K 4 ‘why don’t you build a town and set up a shipping/trade/hospitality base’ and by 1615 there were four pubs and it was on the way.

Falmouth then in 1688 became the base for the famous Packet Boats that carried mail to and from England initially to Spain and then all around the world, lasting until 1850 when steam power took over. Mail would arrive in Falmouth and be transported by ‘fast’ coach and horses to London or wherever, to London it took about five days. We heard that the Packet captains who transported gold took 1% of the value and could earn up to 20,000 pounds per year at that time, an enormous sum, but was danger money because there were still pirates.

Falmouth grew and grew and it was a popular place to go, Beatrix Potter visited in the late 1890’s and said that the menus were written in five languages. There were consulates for many countries and the travel/history writer Philip Marsden said in one book it was a ‘town of outsiders’. Now there’s a university so more ‘incomers’ are welcomed. In the 1930s the town was full of little narrow streets, slums in some parts and there was a big clearance which opened up the town (though it wasn’t universally popular and in some cases not necessary) and now there are houses from that era hard up against Georgian, Victorian and brand-new builds, quite a mix, with some very pretty areas especially as you get away from the original waterside village.

We climbed up above the river, had a good view from the old cemetery – another story about when the hillside collapsed and the road was covered in old coffins and skeletons. Will lives in the converted Quaker Hall and popped into his flat to pick up his accordion, sat on the wall for a couple of minutes and gave us a tune. He did a great job on the tour, enjoyed himself, not too wordy but made history come alive. As we walked down he told us a few stories about townsfolk and what they got up to, a tale of cannibalism in a shipwreck, a captive musician………..90 minutes very well spent.

The town main street was much busier on the way back to the ship, lots of visitors on a public holiday and every second one had a dog. SO MANY dogs, big, small, well-controlled, underfoot, shops with notices saying ‘Dogs welcome’ – I think okay outside but not inside. They were everywhere and the narrow main street was really busy. We picked up a Cornish pasty to take back, sat on our balcony and I thought of my dad. He was a champion pasty maker, never forgotten.

In the afternoon we did a bus tour around the area, it was a squished bus, a bit hard to see a lot but it was interesting all the same, the guide was very informative and we got lots of history, stories about the places we saw and a couple of stops. There was a howling gale blowing, faces just about got sandblasted at the beach, I was taking a photo of Pete looking back at St Michael’s Mount and he just about lost THE HAT – which, as we all know, he doesn’t venture out without, and he’s got a strap to pull out in case of a high wind. Then it happened, the strap snapped, hat nearly went flying. That was close!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Michael's_Mount

Anyway, back to the tour. We heard about Ralph’s Cupboard, one of many caves in the cliffs, Ralph was a giant who captured people stored them in the cave until he ate them. The tide was out so we could see people walking across the causeway to St Michael’s Mount, we’d done that in 2013 when we stayed in Penzance with Jen, it’s a beautiful little island and house. There was so much gorse on the hills, I asked if it was a noxious week like in NZ but the guide said ‘oh no, we like it, sometimes it gets burnt off but not often’. There were spring blossoms on the trees, I saw a couple of paddocks full of daffodils ready for picking, even saw a couple of calves with their mums. There were a few swimmers and surfers on the beaches, lots of craggy cliffs.

And of course we can't forget the mining history of Cornwall, with abandoned mine chimneys and buildings across the hills and all around the countryside, hard to believe they went down more than 3000 feet in some cases, and well out under the sea. It's hard to imagine the life of miners, and how brave they were too in mostly awful conditions.

So that was our short stay in lovely Cornwall, we’d like to go back again, there’s so much to see.

I should say that there may be different photos on my Facebook page if you want to have a look. Thanks for reading my thoughts about our trip.Read more