Penzance, England (Part 1 of 2)

 

We slept hard after our travels, then packed up to head to the ship. I had never heard of this smallish town in southwestern England other than the Gilbert and Sullivan opera, but was willing to do a little exploring during our time off, which turned out to be on the day of our arrival. So we stowed our gear in our newly-assigned bunks and headed out. 

 

We just had to be pirates in Penzance!

The ironic juxtaposition of our ship docked by a building that had a mural of a "pirate ship" painted on the side of it.

Close up of the "pirate" mural. Sadly the pub was closed when we were there; it might have been fun to try.

We wandered the streets of town a bit. Relatively few detached houses compared to the row houses. To my delight they weren't painted in uniform "subdued earth tones" like so many townhouse developments in the U.S. These had tons of personality and individuality. We would find it a common theme in many, though not all, parts of England.

Our visit coordinated with a local midsummer festival called Golowan. It had Druid roots, was coopted into a Christian celebration of Saint John, and then into its modern form. It included fireworks and crowds, market stalls, roaming bands, and a slightly odd parade weaving through the center of town that included large fanciful wicker (?) figures.

I didn't really understand what the figure in red represented as it "danced" and the girl with the clacking sticks moved in front of it, but it definitely had a pagan feel. There were several similar performances, too crowded for us to get close enough for a good view. (I grabbed this view from the quarterdeck, in between explaining the ship to the visitors.)

The first “quiet” fireworks show I’ve seen — more snap-crackle-pop than boom, but equally pretty.

The town was quite proud of their nature gardens, just a few blocks away but very far from the bustle of the festival crowds.

Water feature with so many flowers and textures.

The backlighting made this fuzzy tree glow.

Dan pointing out a very hairy tree trunk (closeup in the next photo),

Hairy tree

A nice nature path