cornwall coast

hey guys! get ready for a painfully long post. my internet was super sketchy during our nice little weekend escape so i have to wrap our whole west trip into one post! so this one will be covering two days that were totally jam packed! i think this will be thursday and friday of this week. so let's get started! 

so we woke up in salisbury and had breakfast at our cute little bed and breakfast on the river. it was downstairs in the pub! so that was funny. it was kind of like a restaurant so we got to order. a lot of people got the traditional english breakfast with beans, toast, tomatoes, eggs, hashbrown, and a mushroom. now i know that sounds great and all but i am really trying to not gain 1009203509 pounds. so i got a tea scone and yogurt and felt really good about myself until i was hungry 20 minutes later. hahah oh well. anyways then we packed up the coach and it was off to stonehenge! we added it to this day since we didn't do it the original day for some reason. 

i was at stonehenge 3 years ago and i have to say not much has changed. hahaha. it's lovely and really cool and all but you only need 20 minutes at stonehenge! it's a short-stop kind of a thing. very cool though. 

after stonehenge we did the cliché thing and headed to bath! i loveeee bath. i never have enough time there! bath is so beautiful. its all white buildings and lots of boutiques and just lovely things in general. i might plan a day trip there towards the end of this thing! 

so the first thing we did was tour the roman baths, which gave it's name to the town 'bath'. super complicated i know. the building you see standing today was actually erected in the romantic period when there was a high demand for tourism. the roman ruins are actually underneath this. a little confusing because the new structure looks so roman and old, but yeah. don't get fooled! 

this is actual roman stuff!

i also visited bath 3 years ago and unlike stonhenge, something has changed! they have significantly expanded and improved the museum like exhibits within the building. there are tons of roman pieces including jewelry and pottery and all sorts of good stuff. the thing that was really worth noting though, was the water! they have a place were you can actually try some now! i was pretty pumped... which was too bad because it was nasty. like really really nasty, i dumped it out. it is a gross level of warmness and tastes like hydrogen peroxide and gutter water. yikes. cool to try it, but definitely wouldn't bottle that and sell it! 

after our nice little bath excursion we had some free time for lunch. i kind of have this obsession with tea (we get herbal instead of the traditional) so we started looking for a cute little place. right next to our bus stop was this place called the mad hatter. of course i have an even bigger obsession with anything that is relatively close to disney so i was pumped. 1) it was so cute i died 2) the baguette i had was so nommy i died. so it was just a huge win-win situation. obviously everything was alice in wonderland themed so that was the cutest. i wanted to buy a tea set so so bad but i was scared it would break! i had a turkey brie cranberry toasted baguette and it was heavenly. i've craved one like everyday now! so maybe i will have to return to bath just to get another. 

after lunch me and chelsea still had some free time so we found this cute little garden. i think it was called the palace gardens or something? i'm pretty sure that's not right. but anyways you had to pay a pound to get in and it was really quaint (like everything here) and beautiful. i guess the gardeners here actually compete nationally for garden awards and they have won a couple times! 

monument for mozart

cutest place they serve tea! 

Okay, so this is where things really got interesting. on this night we were staying in youth hostels for the first time. i was terrified. the only thing that really comforted me was that our program actually rented out the whole entire hostel so we weren't staying with anyone sketchy. that was comforting. so we are on the coast at this place called tintagel. professor jacoby has been warning us that one of the hostels (we were split into two) is a good twenty minute walk away from town. i thought this meant it was out in the middle of a field or something. i was wrong. we started walking towards the coast.. which was cool... i thought we must be in a field near the coast...

passed by this super eerie/cool ancient church and cemetary

then down below us we see this teeny little house. all throughout the group you could hear "no way" and "that is NOT where we are staying". we were so pumped! it was literally like on the cliffs of the ocean! it was incredible!!!!! we were squealing we were so freaking excited 

one of the views from the house! 

so after we unloaded and got all settled in we had to head back to the coach and help the other half of the group get settled into their hostel. we drove through tintagel and into this other little town called boscastle. (below are some pictures from the hike back to the coach)

isn't it the cutest town ever? it's supposedly the mythical birthplace of king arthur so there are tons of funny shops themed like that. there's merlins crystal shoppe, and the museum of witchcraft and all sorts of fun stuff. it's cute! but of course we came in late and left early because everything was closed :( 

so below is where the hostel at boscastle is. it was the most beautiful place i have ever seen! right up there with wales! there was a beautiful river coming through straight into the ocean.. the hostel was right next to the boat slip so little waves would lap up against it.. it was UNREAL. ours was just as cool, don't get me wrong, but this one was just freakin cute. 

after dropping off the luggage, we were off on our hike! now we were all super sketched about this hike. jacoby kept saying how it was a leisurely stroll down the coast that usually takes about three hours. the fact that a leisurely stroll took three hours was a major red flag. long story short... we were right. this was not a stroll. it was an all out HIKE. it was 6 miles, not 3, and it was seriously up and down and up and down over and over and over. it was a really intense workout!! i was dying! oh my freaking gosh. the only thing that made it okay was how amazingly beautiful it was. it was seriously breathtaking everywhere we went! 

so we came up to this wall.. and there was the cutest little terrier puppy protecting it! cutest! 

every couple of hundred yards we had to go through these gates! on the inland side of our trail were sheep and cows so they use these funny gates to keep them on the right land 

foxglove! My abosulte favorite..

huge hotel at the end of our hike

hydrangeas and houses on our way back into town

I swear every other house was a bed and breakfast!

So after our incredibly long hike… (we got done at ten thirty!) we were so HUNGRY. Oh my freaking gosh. Jacoby had called the local pub earlier to have them stay open late because we knew we were gonna be coming in late. Sadly we took a lot longer than was originally planned and they closed on us! I seriously thought it was the end of the world! Then by some miracle, we literally turn around and see an indian restaurant open!! Happiest moment of my life! Heaven bless the indian people. I think it was the most people they have ever had in their indian restaurant but they were so happy to have the business! They were so sweet to all of us.. and what was even better.. it was THE BEST indian food I have ever had!! Oh my freaking goodness. I had this honeypot masala with lamb and oh my nom nom nom nom nom. I crave that now too! I don’t think I’ll ever be able to find it again. Saddest of the sad.

After our yummiest indian food we hiked back down to our hostel in the complete darkness and prayed we didn’t fall into the ocean. Then we seriously crashed. Our room was so tiny and probably like 4 feet tall but we didn’t even care. I slept like a rock!

The next morning we woke up to professor jacoby’s family cooking us breakfast! In hostels there is usually a little kitchen area where you can cook your own food so they used that. It was great to have a real breakfast instead of the yogurt and toast we get everyday at the centre! We had eggs, toast, real hot chocolate, ham, and something else I am forgetting. It was great! I have to say the only downfall to our hostel was that I definitely woke up sick. My throat hurt dang bad. So I’m pretty sure I picked up some germs somewhere in there. Oh well though!

drinkin hot cocoa outside the hostel!

the teeny shack where the 3 boys stayed!

side view of half of the hostel

the reception room! You can buy some food items and necessities. It’s insane!

my instagram from the day! Isn’t it just like Hawaii?!

okay! So after our breakfast we hiked back up to the coach for the last time and said goodbye to our cute hosts! Hostels are typically run by volunteers and our sweet little couple had just arrived and were spending their first week there. They hadn’t been able to work for a couple of years so they were very happy to be back! They were so sweet.

The first place we were off to was St. Ives! It’s a very touristy cute little coastal town. Really popular for the Brits when they go on holiday. It was once a major fishing village but now a lot of it has turned to art galleries… so a great comparison someone made earlier in the day was that it’s kind of like the Laguna Beach of England! Hahaha the more I thought about it the more it fit! So yeah if you like that feel then hit up St. Ives! It was fun to have a good amount of free time and just roam the streets. What really cracked me up was the all the surf shops in St. Ives! Surfing in England?! Yeahhh probably not. Hahahaha. But they have all the goods! Roxy, billabong, o’neill, ripcurl.. hahaha seriously like I said it’s like being in laguna! But not really.

cute side street. I. LOVE. BUNTING. It’s everywhere and I’m obsessed

since we were in cornwall it was only appropriate to try a Cornish pasty! I got a traditional one and it was pretty good!

Our next stop was st. michael’s mount! It is a volcanic cone that is connected to the mainland during low tide and an island at high tide! Kind of cool right? A nice way to keep people out! But it has this awesome castle like thing. I didn’t really catch the history of it so ya’ll might have to look it up but I know that it is presently owned by the st. aubyn family. This estate was really cool to me because even if it wasn’t as old as places like the London tower, it is furnished to the nines. It is so cool! Something you would definitely picture in a movie with all the grand detail, artwork, colors.. it was amazing. I love all the elegance and grandeur!

the estate also has some really amazing gardens we wandered around. It had beautiful views of the castle above and the sea. For my mother- there were succulents EVERYWHERE. You would’ve died. I have seen quite a few in various garden giftshops now and I wish I could send you some!

one of the girls in the st. aubyn family is actually going to use the chapel within the castle to get married in this summer! So they have it all cleaned up and stuff. I am so jealous!! How neat would it be to just use your familys ancient manor on an island to get married in!

after st. michael’s mount guess what we did?! Got back on the coach! So exciting right? Hahah. This time we were headed to a mystical place called “land’s end”. Yes that’s really the name of it! It’s the most southwest corner of the british isles. Super exciting right? Almost as exciting as the four corners. Almost. We took some pictures, watched a rock for thirty minutes thinking it was a whale… you know, all the good stuff J nah but seriously, one thing that was really cool is we got to see these bikers (dad this is for you!) finish their 7 day trip across great Britain! They start up in Scotland and finish at lands end. It’s about 900 miles and they go about 150 miles a day. Crazy right? So dad, if you ever want to try something other than lotoja, I would be glad to do support for you J. Funny story, as one of the riders finished, he proposed to his girlfriend! It was great! Being byu students almost every girl in our group grabbed their phones and filmed it. Hahaha. Some cried. No big deal. Yay for byu.

a wishing wall! I loved this because of the Disneyland paris one. #aliproblems

after this.. back on the coach and onto where we were staying the night! Penzance! I’m sure you have all heard of the musical pirates of penzance. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I had no idea penzance was actually in England?! Surprise surprise. Our sweet bus driver kevin warned us that penzance was known for crime, so I was a little sketched out. You would think it would be this great little coastal town, but these days it’s a thing of the past. It definitely has lost the charm it probably once had. It was sad. What was even sadder is that we had the most free time here and absolutely nothing to do. Me and some friends probably walked for like 3 miles down the ‘boardwalk’. The ocean was pretty but the town itself just looks kind of sad L it was a sad thing to see! We did find an indian place though! Second night of an indian food in a row! Wooooot. So that was exciting.

At 8:30 we met up again to be delivered to our various b&bs and hostels. We were in 6 different ones so it got a little complicated! I was with Chelsea and lauren and we were a little scared because the title of our place didn’t say ‘inn’ or ‘hostel’ or ‘bed and breakfast’, and not that we had a bad experience at the hostel the night before, but we kinda wanted a clean shower!! When we saw that professor christiansons family was staying with us, we knew we lucked out. We had to hike through the rain down a cute little road to get there but our bed and breakfast was AMAZING. It was so nice!!! It even had a private helipad! Oh my gosh we were just dying. We had our own room and bathroom and it was so nice to feel like we were staying at a house! We had an iPod dock and made some tea and watched tangled and TV! It was amazing!! I felt like I was having a sleepover with my friends and it was just great.

so happy to be out of the rain!