Cornwall and Devon

So I decided to take the easter weekend off, especially because here in the UK good friday and good monday are bank holidays so it's really a 4-day weekend woot! So me and two friends (Leticia and Nalleli) decided to go to Cornwall because the weather seemed to be (and is) much nicer than in Manchester and there's actually some nice beaches and miles upon miles of coastline you can walk around. Going to Devon wasn't actually in our plans but due to some logistic problems we had to go there and I must say I don't regret it since we saw some very nice things there. The trip was especially nice because we had a car and that allowed us to be very flexible in what we wanted to see; for example, we stayed near Brixham in Devon and we wanted to visit Land's End which is like a 3 hour drive so you can see the nuances that not having a car might have posed. Anyways for those of you who don't know where Cornwall and Devon are, here's a pretty pic for ya.

So, on friday morning, around 7am, we set off. We exited manchester via the M56 and then joined the M6 until Birmingham where we changed to the M5 until Exeter and some miles later we were in Torbay, all in all a 7 hour drive (the island looks much smaller in the maps). The Torbay area is known to be the English Riviera. I was somewhat skeptical about that but it actually turned out to be very nice. We walked along the Torquay coastline which ends in Brixham. Here's some prrety pictures so you can see what I'm talkin' about:








At nightfall we went to Berry Head national reserve where you can see some amazing cliffs and landscapes, just a prelude to all of which we were going to see over the next days. These piccies are not very good since there was no light there and I'm no experienced photographer but here you have'em (the nicer ones aren't actually mine):





Saturday we set off pretty early again (7am) for the 3 and a half hour drive to Land's End, this was what I really wanted to see, it's the most westernly point in mainland Britain and hence the closest you can be to good old Mexico without going out of the island. Again, the landscapes were amazing, judge for yourself:







After that we decided to go to Marazion, where you can find St. Michael's Mount which has a castle on top. You can walk directly to the castle when the tide is low but once it starts rising (around 15:30) you need to make your way back or you might spend the night there, or come back by boat. It was a pity that the castle was closed though since it seemed really interesting but now I have an excuse to go back. Check out the pix:





After that we headed to the small town of St. Ives which is a very nice seaside town which is supposed to be renowned for its culture, there's an extension of London's Tate gallery there. Sadly, the we ran out of batteries on the cameras so there's not to many pictures of this place but here you have a couple:


On our way back we decided to visit Plymouth, the town were the English set off to the "New World", i.e. the U.S. We got there quite late, around 9pm, and with no cameras so I had to use my phone and that's why these pix are shitty. We didn't see much here since it was late we only saw the Barbican areas were you can see the plaques of the ships that sailed off from Plymouth.





Oh, I forgot to say the natural division between the counties of Devon and Cornwall is Tamar River and in order to cross it you have to cross Tamar Bridge. I thought it was nice so I took a pic:


Sunday was a real treat. First off, we drove to Tintagel castle which is the supposed birth place of the legendary King Arthur. As far as i understood nobody's proved that he was actually born there but still people like to beleive it. the thing that caught me off guard is that there isn't any castle! There's just the remains of what once was a small castle destroyed by a fire. But man! The landscapes were breathtaking! And also, between the cliffs a little beach is formed and there's a mini cascade and some caves. It's just really cool. I think this was my favorite part of the trip.







Next off we went to Newquay, where we orginally planned to stay. Newquay is the surfers' paradise in the UK. There's always plenty of young people and now that the weather was decent alot of them were on the beach doing some surfing but I didn't take any pics of them :P. The beach was nice and the sun made appearances at time so I took advantage of that to work on my tan hehe. We also had dinner there in a very nice and very typical restaurant called, what was it called? I actually don't remember but it was something about a Dolphin. The food was really nice.







Monday we had to come back to Manchester :( but not before visiting Dartmouth Castle and having a look at the town of Dartmouth. I've gotta say the town is really peculiar and picturesque because the houses are constructed in the hill which opens up to the River Dart like so:



So that's it after that we came back to manchester after a 7 hour drive. I hope you liked the pics. What were you guys up to on the easter weekend? I know you were out because my visits took a dramatic fall! :P So do tell where you were!