Falmouth/St.Mawes/St.Just

Hi Everyone. We are really enjoying England. I think we have picked the best time to come, with temperatures in the 70s... it's a bit cool, but the flowers are blooming, the grass is green, the trees have new leaves and the weather has been sunny most of the time.

We sailed across the Fal River to St. Mawes, a two mile journey, on Monday. The winds were strong from the East and the Falmouth anchorage had become uncomfortable. It was the perfect excuse to do some touring a little farther afield.

We took a hike along the St. Anthony Headland footpath on Monday. The day was sunny, the wind brisk, and the walk beautiful. These footpaths are located all over England, and anyone can enjoy their beauty. They go through farmer's fields, along cliffs and coastline, near castles, and estates, and they are numerous which means you could spend days on end just hiking through local footpaths wherever you are in England. In the Falmouth area, there are over eight that I know of.

Anyway, the St. Anthony Headland goes through some steep pasture land with cows grazing along terraced hills. The path also takes you along the cliffs next to the sea, right up to the lighthouse that welcomes sailors into Falmouth Harbour. Paul and I discovered a small beach, and cave. The rocks inside were smooth and black, with striations, and markings. There was also numerous pieces of sea glass which I collected and hope to use in some jewelry. I was fascinated by the coloring and smoothness of the seaglass, and my imagination went wild wondering how old each piece was and where it came from.

Later in the day, we explored St. Mawes, a charming small village, and also found out we should hike another footpath that would take us to St. Just where an old church and garden were nestled next to a creek.

Tuesday morning we took off towards the church. We were rewarded with seeing another of Henry VIII's castles situated on another headland adjacent to St. Mawes. Paul and I walked through farmer's fields, and walked over small wooden bridges where tiny creeks gurgled down from the hills. We arrived at the church after an hour hike and decided to stop for a picnic. We sat on a bench overlooking the creek next to the St. Just church, and enjoyed our sandwiches and tea. The church is idyllic and quaint. It dates back to 500AD, and I had never seen an older church before. Some of the headstones were so old, that you could no longer read the writing. I'm usually not "into" gravesites, but this one was beautiful with interesting Celtic crosses adorning some of the graves. It is also surrounded by a green-filled garden. Large mature trees dot the landscape, and well-tended flowers are everywhere. We walked through the gardens, and then went into the church. Paul and I were both silent and a little bit in awe at the ageless beauty inside. I could imagine ladies and knights coming to Sunday mass, sitting in the wooden pews. An old Englishman pointed out some important dates chiseled in stone, and mentioned a lapse of some years in the timeline......he says those were the years of the Crusades and so priests and noblemen were quite busy at the time, and not able to get back to their local churches to update the stones which give each church it's history.

We are back in Falmouth now, and need to do some long awaited chores like grocery shopping and laundry.

I loaded some pictures up on picasa, so you can go to the link on our blog and see.
Love to all.