Day 3 Touring The UK, Bodmin Moor, Jamaica Inn, St. Michael's Mount (Part I)

The plan for the day, be on the coach at 8 am, stop around 9:15 at the Jamica Inn, move onto Marazion for a picture stop of St. Michael's Mount, move onto St. Ives and have lunch; and be back at the hotel around 5.  Our tour director generally had this posted somewhere the evening before so we could plan a bit, but sometimes he didn't put it out until we were at breakfast, and sometimes he only had a copy on the bus...which wasn't as helpful.

Our itinerary had a bit more info:  Travel through the unspoiled beauty of Bodmin Moor: stop for photo's at Jamaica Inn, built in 1750 and immortalized in Daphne du Maurier's tale of daring smugglers.  Visit the coastal village of Marazion to see the romantic outline of St. Michael's Mount, an island topped by a spectacular castle.  In the old fishing town of St. Ives, take a walking tour to see it's cobbled streets, quaint cottages, art galleries, and surrounding sandy beaches.  Enjoy time to explore before returning to a free evening in Tavistock.

This was the view from our hotel window,(The Bedford Hotel) you can see how old the buildings are, and how foggy it was off in the distance.  We were staying in Tavistock.  Our hotel was without air conditioning, which is not uncommon in Europe.  It was also without an elevator, also not uncommon in Europe.  Both of those conditions caused several in our group some issues.  In my previous post I mentioned we were without electric our first night there and showed a picture of the hotel.

Our first stop was the Jamaica Inn.  You can see it was indeed old (built in 1750).  The beauty of Bodmin Moor that we were to enjoy on the way was a bust due to the fog and rain off and on.

The Inn had several rooms, folks looked around and some got a coffee, others of us made a bathroom stop and looked around in the gift shop.

Joss was the inkeeper, and the leader of a gang of smugglers who worked the Cornish Coastline.  The author Daphne du Maurier actually stayed at the inn and used it as her inspiration when she wrote the novel, Jamaica Inn in 1936.  Alfred Hitchcock directed a film staring Maureen  O'Hara, a period piece set in the 1815 time frame.  There was also a TV series staring Jane Seymour in 1983.  Apparently the TV series followed the novel more closely.  All I can find is Joss Merlyn was stabbed and found by his niece Mary.

I peered out at our coach before pulling up my hood on my rain coat, as it was raining a bit.  Another cute red phone box.

Before getting back on the coach, I wanted at least one picture of Bodmin Moor; but as you can see with the fog, our views were limited.

Not sure I would describe the view of St. Michael's Mount as "romantic".  But maybe if we could have seen the Castle on top?

From their webpage: what we weren't able to see.  This photo was taken during low tide, when you can walk to the island.  There are things to explore, places to shop and eat.  You need a ticket to tour the castle.

A view at night of the castle lighted.  You can get tickets for boat rides during the day or evening to get to the island during high tide.  The St. Aubyn Family gave the land to the National Trust in 1954, thought they have a 999 year lease to stay and live in the Castle and maintain the visitors business.  Our stop was about 15 minutes, long enough to attempt pictures and a few found time to use the restroom facilities.  People were quickly back on the coach due to the rain.

I'm breaking this day up for 2 posts, due to the number of pictures.  Please pop back in .

PLEASE leave me a comment when you come visit, so I know you were here. Your visits and comments are very special to me. AND remember, leave your name and url and not your profile link. Name and url takes me right to your blog post so I can reciprocate the visit.

The UK in Fourteen Days

I am recently back from a 14 day 13 night tour of The UK with CIE Tour Company.  CIE Tour Company has it's office in Cedarknolls, NJ and has been in business for 90 years.  I've taken tours before with Insight Vacations and would rate their tours (Ireland and Scotland, and Italy) over CIE.  The accommodations and meals were substandard, IMHO.  I did a review of the tour on yelp, and wish I had seen the reviews before booking.  There are 22 reviews counting mine and the average rating is only a 2.5 out of 5.  There were 7 people who gave the company a rating of 5, and 10 people who gave it a rating of 1.  My rating was a 2.  Interestingly CIE's webpage indicates they have a 95% satisfaction rate which seems not to match the reviews on yelp.

My friend and I choose this tour, as it's one of a few that included Wales.  We choose the month of August in order to attend the Military Tattoo in Edinburgh.  We covered a lot of miles as you can see.  One of the pluses of the tour was only having a single night once, and the bulk of the time spending two consecutive nights in the same lodging.  

The tour started in Windsor, which I really enjoyed.  The tour ended in London.

We added an extra night at the front of the tour to give us time to adjust a bit to the 5 hour difference, and to give us a buffer should there be any problems with flights etc.  You really just never know.  Travel nowadays can present some difficulties.

Here I am with my Prosecco on board Delta in business class.

AND my friend, Jane.  The flight was very nice, with excellent meal service and we managed to get a few hours sleep once the meal service was over and we were able to lay our seats flat.

PLEASE leave me a comment when you come visit, so I know you were here. Your visits and comments are very special to me. AND remember, leave your name and url and not your profile link. Name and url takes me right to your blog post so I can reciprocate the visit.