I left Lizard at the customary hour of 7:00 a.m.

There is a formula. Whatever the stated distance, and no matter the difficulty, and no matter the exact time of departure, the most likely time of arrival will be 2:00 p.m.

Hmmm, there was a boat there, but oh well:

Rock formation:

Thatched roofs are irresistible:

Nature is so wonderful:

A gorgeous, rolling carpet of purples and pinks:

See that green algae covered pool that looks like a miniature lake? It is not The Devil’s Frying Pan, but, except that it is smaller and not on one side of a thin neck of rock on which I was standing so that you could not see it anyway, it looks like the Devil’s Frying pan of which I neglected to take a picture:

This is definitely a river flowing to the sea:

Algunas flores muy pequeñas y muy bonitas:

Today, in Coverack:

there was a big fund raiser for the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution. You can see a drill going on what with the helicopter and the boat and all:

There were craft stalls and food stalls and all manner of thing to raise money for this ever so worthy organization. I did my duty and did buy a sandwich, some strawberries and a great big piece of cake (and made a donation, too!)

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Location:Coverack

Why is it that even if it should be impossible to go the wrong way I seem to be able to. First, heading out of town, then going too far inland. Neither of these errors added more than, say, a mile to the supposed total of 14, or was that 14.5? There was much gorgeousness and a big ravine to descend and ascend, some stunning beaches packed, I mean jam-packed with frolickers (of which I took a photo pero no está), and only one put-on-the-rain-gear-take-off-the-rain-gear event. It was nice to see the sun.

From near this spot……see photo below….on Dec. 12, 1901, the first transatlantic wireless telegraph message was sent to Newfoundland. But, apparently, there is some doubt about the success of the transmission because it was very faint, having been sent during daylight hours, which, for reasons I do not understand, are/were the worst hours for that kind of transmission. Marconi, who developed wireless transmission as opposed to transmission via cable–remember Porthcurno–which had been developed in the 1850’s, is a figure of great renown in these parts. It kind of gives you a jolt to think about these innovations and to realize that those amazing cables became obsolete less than fifty years after their first success.

Monument to Marconi:

A riding lesson or something on the beach:

Sky:

Vast-ness with a few cows, which is what you see instead of the coast when you stray off the designated path:

This here is one mighty big bovine:

Stone on chain to make sure that gate shuts:

What you see when you ARE on the path:

Doesn’t this look like a postcard scene?

In Lizard, where I am pernoctating ce soir, aside from the tea shoppes and the fudge shoppes, the ice cream offerings, and the fish and chip stands, there is a farm store. It displayed 3 lettuces, one bag of kale, several garlic cloves and a few pounds of cherry tomatoes. There may have been some onions, too. I did relieve the owner of a lettuce and some tomatoes.

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Location:Lizard

It started out to-day, and is forecast to do the same tomorrow, with a misty rain that is not really rain, but heavy foggy mist that gets you wet fast. This is no way as bad as torrential rain, so cannot complain except to say that no matter how light weight your rain gear is, it is tiring to walk in rain pants and rain jacket. The boot repair sort of held out in that my feet stayed pretty dry, but it has to be redone. Of course, the tape won’t stick if the boots don’t dry out. And even if they do, it may not hold. Oh well.

Since it was raining, there was not much photo taking. This abandoned, thatch-roofed cottage made the cut:

Oh, no! Can you see Mr. red figure running in front of the cliff? Let’s hope he makes it!

Silly:

One section of the stage had a walk-on-the-beach option, so I took it. But I missed the exit, something I do worry about. There you are with these HUGE cliffs above and no way to get to the top, which is where you are supposed to be. Fortunadamente, there was a way up not too far down the other way.

Rain or no rain, these gulls were having a wonderful time:

Porthlevan is a little town with a charming harbor:

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Location:Porthlevan

Forgotten from yesterday, but not completely forgotten, this may or may not be the stone formation called the Dancing Maidens. Let’s say it is. Apparently, there were these maidens who danced instead of going to vespers for which transgression they were turned to stone:

The legendary giant blue adder?

Remember! Always make an appointment with the dog

St. Michael’s Mount through the mist:

Since it was high tide, I took a little boat to St. Michael’s Mount. Sweet. The setting and walking up the steps to the castle are wonderful, but the castle was no match for Dunster (near Minehead) AND the gardens, which I had wanted to see as much as the castle are open only two days a week, and today was not one of those days. Disappointing! But one could get an aerial view of at least some of them:

The most beautiful feature was the windows:

Here is another. The latches are gorgeous, too:

Horse head (not real) with stone reflection:

What is a castle without armor?

Many rooms and areas were roped off, so the whole visit took maybe an hour. So I decided to return to Penzance since Marazion is very small. I took a bus! I never take buses, but I took a bus and even waited on the correct side of the street for it.

It was fun to walk around without concern for getting lost….all you have to do to get back is head for the sea and look for St. Michael’s Mount and there you are! So I did some grocery shopping and gallery viewing.

I thought that these crumpled, black pieces of paper….15,000 pieces, or more, represented rocks on the coast, but, no, this was an exhibit about a suicide bombing. It was actually quite powerful. Aside from this display, which ran around half the room, there were a couple of huge abstract paintings:

Walked back to Marazion, again on the beach, but easier without heavy backpack, boots, and many miles already trudged. Saw this smart contraption on the beach. It is a wheelchair designed to go on sand:

In Penzance, I was on the hunt for tape with which to seal my boots. Desafortunadamente, it only came in orange. But the good thing is, I now have a huge roll of it!

Concluded the rest day with visits to several art galleries in Marazion, and all I can say is that it is a good thing I am traveling, because there were temptations!

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Location:Marazion

Lots of navigating through, over, and around ROCKS, but gorgeous walking. See what you get to see?

Not the destination, but a moment that gave pause to think:

Indeed:

This is why people are so upset with what Land’s End has become:

To make sure you get the idea:

The big red cone and the smaller black one are markers for ships:

Porthcurno has one café, one pub, a few hostelries, a magnificent beach, a major telegraph museum, and the Minack theater.

There were lots of technological marvels in the Telegraph Museum and many reminders of the importance of communication systems during war time. One mind boggling thing was learning about the first laying of cables on (under?) the ocean floor. A section of telegraph cable was made of a copper wire, wrapped in gutta percha, then in jute, then a layer of tar and brass tape, and finally a steel or iron casing. It was very heavy.

It used to be thrilling to communicate by phone:

Among the many reminders of war displayed at the museum, the Anderson Shelter (a real one) was very affecting. These were air raid shelters buried about three feet below ground, covered with a deep layer of soil, which was often used to grorw vegetables. They were effective in saving lives, but were cold, often flooded, and frighteningly noisy during an air raid:

Inside:

The Minack Theater is this coliseum-like marvel built into the cliffs, which offers a spectacular setting for theatrical performances:

The play that was playing was The Titfield Thunderbolt. Titfield is the name of a town and Thunderbolt, the name of the train that the townspeople want to save from being decommissioned except for one man who bought an old beat-up bus to drive, with plans to take over the train route. You see the dramatic tension? I knew I could only stay for one act because walking back to my B and B in the pitch dark…..no sidewalks or anything…..was something I did not want chance. Fortunately, it was not hard to leave at intermission. But now I will never know whether the vicar of Titfield got to drive the train, which was something he really really really wanted to do.

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Location:Old Cable Lane,Penzance,United Kingdom

A day of mine visits, first to Greevor Tin Mine (not so old) and then Levant copper mine (old). You learn a lot about how the ores were extracted and the processes of refining and all that technical stuff, and it is all impressive, but some of the more day-to-day aspects grabbed my attention. Por ejemplo, boys as young as seven worked underground, life expectancy was about 27 years, women and girls performed some hard physical labour, such as breaking up the rocks with hammers, and horses were used in the mines.

To get horses into the mines, someone tied their legs, those of the horses, that is, up against their bodies and lowered them on platforms, deep into the mines, where they, the horses, LIVED for several years. There was a vet who took care of them, especially notable because there was no doctor for the miners. When the horses were brought up to the surface again, their eyes had to be covered for a time so that they could get used to the light. (How covering their eyes got them used to the light, je ne sais pas.)

The Levant mine ran under the sea. Its deepest and longest tunnels had very little air way out there under the ocean, as you can imagine, and it was very hot. All mining conditions are terrible, but this seemed unusually horrible.

How did the miners get up and down, you may wonder. Ladders. It took two hours for a miner to climb from the bottom to the top—maybe just as long to go the other way, I don’t know—so a kind of escalator was developed. This was a platform that was lowered (and raised) at twelve foot increments. A miner would have to hop off one platform and catch the next one as a miner, going in the opposite direction did the same. This worked pretty well until the mechanism broke and something like 39 miners were killed. After this, they went back to the ladders.

When the mines were prosperous, investors sometimes made 1000 times their investment. Isn’t it always that way! Maybe not exactly THAT way!

Arsenic is a by product of tin (not sure about copper), so the men who worked extracting and/or purifying that metal wore protective clothing, like hazmat suits, and put clay on their faces. Inter alia, a brilliant green pigment made using arsenic was important in wall paper design, and people had to have their wall paper despite all.

Tin cans were developed around 1810. They were so thick and heavy at first that they were opened by being whacked by a hammer. The invention of the can opener came later.

As one walks the path in this area, one sees many ruins. Here is part of one:

And here is the whole thing!

I was pretty mined out after four hours, and actually skipped out of the lecture on steam engines because It was clear that it was going to go on forever and my head was about to explode from information. Besides, I had places to go in the rain, in my boots that leak with my phone that, I discovered, is really not working at all…no wi-fi, nada.

By and by I encountered a bovine of the male gender. Excuse me, Mr. young bull, I am coming through and I hope that my orange rain jacket will not make me say Olé as we pass each other:

One of his friends. Bulls are nowhere near as good looking as cows, and that is all there is to it:

More quadrupeds! He’s eyeing my walking poles, he is:

A sweet stone bridge with fancy rails

Here it is in the distance and in the mist, Cape Cornwall:

which everyone is now calling the New Land’s End because everyone seems to hate Land’s End due to its having become a commercial sprawl. Tomorrow I will find out for myself.

Hydrangeas:

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Location:St Just

In Zennor, one awakes to the cock-a doodle-do of the rooster as opposed to the cry of the gull. Both avian creatures like to make themselves heard at about the same early hour.

Pendeen, seven miles distant from Zennor—but eleven miles by the time I got through with it—is not a regulation stage, but I wanted to tour the tin mines here, so an overnight was the best way to accomplish that. And the walk was so stunning, that I am glad I didn’t rush it. Besides, it was slow going due to lots of twisty, turny, rocky, steep, sometimes muddy paths. Perhaps youngsters can gambol along such kind of terrain, pero yo, no.

View from a bridge:

One of the special touches of walking these routes is seeing benches, often dedicated to someone, at strategic viewing points. “Come and sit,” they seem to say, “Enjoy the view.”

I took an extra little detour to a point where there were…..ROCKS! Note how Mother Nature improves on the sculptures made by the guy in St Ives:

Remnant of a tin mine:

Whoa!! Super majestic rocks:

Nice wild horsey!

In a few years, this outcropping will be dressed all in green:

Is Hotline not the perfect name for an electric fence company?

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Location:Pendeen

St Ives:

The guy whose job it is to follow the street sweeping truck is carrying a whip (at least that it what it looked like). Better get out of the way:

A fisherman:

What this sign is saying—it is faint, after all, is that the fence us electric, so you had better carefully lift and then replace the plastic blue handle as you pass through:

Fetching, little, stone bridge:

There were lots of rocks today:

Boulders you had to climb over, go around, or somehow make your way through. It was lots of fun:

Really, a lot of rocks:

The walking was enjoyable and gorgeous, and so the day ended at sunset in Zennor:

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Location:Zennor

Rest day to day did not kick off withe a 20+ mile bike ride, but was spent museum-ing and arting.

The sizable St. Ives Museum displays lots and lots items having to do with mining, ship building, ship traveling, agriculture, and other daily life sorts of things plus some clothing from the Victorian era and fabrics. The clothing was what captured my attention. All of it was exquisitely made, and some was very delicate. The baby clothes….all I could wonder was, “Did the babies, even the most special babies on the most special occasions of that era, not spit up or poop out of their diapers that they could be dressed is such elegance?” Alas, photo taking was not allowed, so you can’t see any of the marvelous creations.

There is a lot of art in St. Ives and a lot of non-art that calls itself art. I got to see both kinds.

This guy, yeah, the one whose lower half is in the photo, builds these little cairn-like towers out of the rocks on the beach. The most “spectacular” one—because you see, they have to balance—was four rocks high. He has an ingenious little chute (not shown) rigged up for photographers, comme moi, down which one is to throw some coinage:

The highlight of St. Ives is the Barbara Hepworth Museum (there is a branch of the Tate Modern here, but it is under renovation until some time in 1917) whose sculptures bear some similarities to those of Moore. Aside from indoor displays, a wonderful sculpture garden exhibits pieces beautifully placed within the foliage, like this tall piece backgrounded by a stand of bamboo:

The schpiel that tells you about her work describes it as having “pagan beauty.” Perhaps someone would like to explain what the heck PAGAN beauty is as opposed to, say, some other kind of beauty.

Here is another work remarkable in its delicateness compared to most other pieces:

Here is one not in the garden, but showing the Moore connection:

Then I happened upon a super gallery that had paintings, jewelry and ceramics. These miniatures, done by a Japanese artist were exquisite. Each one, no matter how tiny, is shaped, glazed and finished to perfection, and the date each was made is carved in the bottom:

I wonder whether, among Japanese, there is a special affection for the miniature…..they being masters of the netsuke and all.

Still life with cat (from a different gallery) for the cat lovers. You know who you are!

Shoes made out of chocolate! It reads: What every woman wants, chocolate choos:

The arts experience did not cease with the visual. There was also the theatrical! A live performance of Richard III, featuring such heavies as Ralph Fiennes and Vanessa Redgrave, televised from London, was being shown in St.Ives. ¡Qué suerte! I was feeling guilty, though, that I would probably leave during intermission because the running time, 210 minutes, does not jive with the schedule of a walker. It turned out, however, that the disappointing production made exiting easy! First, everything was very black…the staging, the clothing, black. There was a gold crown floating above the stage, but the camera did not capture it that often. Fiennes merely played at playing Richard. Once in a while he gave a snort or smirked, but that was not enough, Mr. Fiennes! In fact it seemed that each actor was in his/her own orbit shrieking their lines with no cadence or nuance. Sort of like, “It’s my turn now! My turn.” Then there was the modernization aspect, employed with unclear purpose. Cell phones were cleverly used a couple of times—someone asks, “What news, Cousin?” And Cousin whips out his iPhone 6—and the clothing was, I don’t know, maybe contemporary, but it was all so black, who could tell, really? Glad I went! Glad I left!

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Location:St Ives

As I was going to St. Ives
I did not meet the seven wives
Of one who charged so many lives
But may they journey on forever
And here’s to them whatever the weather.

An intense spot of colour on a grey morning:

These cows, as you pass by them, stampede to meet you, but this morning, one thought she was a bull, which, as you can see, disrupted the spectacle somewhat:

One reason it is wonderful to be on the trail by 7:00, is that because it is not peopled, it is easier to spot these markers through the multi-pathed dunes:

Oh! Someone lives here:

The variety of grasses, gorse, heather, bushery, and flowers that grow in the sand is quite remarkable. This was an unusual patch in that it almost looks landscaped:

The Blue Bay Café respectfully requests that customers use the side entrance:

There is a LOT to be be-warned about before heading down to this beach:

Got it:

What, would you think, is the penalty for THIS offense?

I’m thinking the slammer!

No raucous activity on the beach here, surfers. But wait. Just what area is THIS area?

Four and twenty of these might make a decent pie:

Fudge shoppe window with plastic dancing lady:

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Location:St. Ives