Sept 11-12
Back on the bus for our two hour ride to the ship in Le Havre, I was sound asleep before the driver pulled away from the Eiffel Tower. And I slept almost the entire way to the port. Onboard, shower, change, dinner and watch the 10PM sailaway from Le Havre. A short jaunt from the coast of France, one hour time change earlier, and tomorrow we would, if the weather held up, drop anchor offshore of Falmouth, in Cornwall, England. This would soon become one of my favorite port calls.
If you are not familiar with Cornwall, it is a small area of England with their own culture and heritage. They are a seafaring people, quite friendly and hospitable. And Cornwall is the home of the Cornish Pasty. Sort of like a turnover with a very thick "handle" along one side, making it easy for the outdoor working man to eat a hearty lunch without getting his dirt-covered hands on the food.
We only had five hours in port and the tender would take up nearly forty minutes each way included time spent in the queue to board. Once ashore, I decided to not take a shore excursion (next time I will definitely take a tour as there is much to see and do outside of town).
A trip to St. Michael's Mount would have been my first choice for a shore excursion. It is an old (so what isn't?) monastery about forty-five minutes outside of town. When the tide is out, you can walk the river bed to the monastery. When the tide is in, a small boat conveys passengers back and forth. Once at the monastery, you have time to walk the grounds.
I chose to walk the pavement in Falmouth. Shopping is really quite terrific in Falmouth, very European-style clothing stores, not what I expected from a small town. But the lure is the pasty, and I quickly devoured a very hot meat and vegetable pastie and a flavorful cup of Earl Grey tea. By now it was time to start heading back to the pier. Along the way, I stopped at the Falmouth Library where there was a kinetic art exhibit being installed. Arrived at the pier, waited about 20 minutes for the first tender to appear and was back on the ship by 4pm.
We would sail out of Falmouth shortly thereafter, having to wait an extra hour for a few of the shore excursion buses to catch up.
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