England Road Trip Part 6: St. Michael's Mount

Our last day of our England road trip before we started our cruise, we went to St. Michael's Mount.  This tidal island may have been the site of a Benedictine monastery as late as the 11th century and is across the English Channel from the French counterpart Mont-Saint-Michel.

Looking out at St. Michael's Mount.

At low tide, the island is reachable on foot over a paved causeway.  At high tide, this causeway is under water and visitors need to pay for a boat ride to get across.  We made sure to time it so we could walk across.

On the island is a castle originally built in the 12th century.  This castle is somewhat unique as it is still inhabited; the St. Aubyn family has a 999-year lease on the property, so they still live there and run the tourist businesses on the island under license from the National Trust.  Visitors can tour through public areas of the castle and the beautiful gardens.

The top of the castle gave us great views over the Channel and back to land looking at the city of Penzance.

 

The chapel inside the castle walls was interesting to me.  I liked how the beautiful stained glass popped against the rustic stone walls.

The organ in the chapel had interesting history.  It was built in 1786 for a Member of Parliament in nearby Truro who apparently soothed himself when suffering insomnia by playing the organ at all hours of the night.  Apparently the neighbors' complaints finally convinced him to sell the organ to a member of the St. Aubyn family who lived on St. Michael's Mount and they moved the organ here where it could be played in their chapel during services.

This statue of St. Michael simultaneously subduing the Devil and extending his hand to help in mercy is one of the pieces of art on display in the chapel.

This is the Lantern Cross dating to the 15th century.

Inside the castle rooms were well staged.

The dining room had a huge British crest with the lion representing England and the unicorn representing Scotland - both together showing a united Britain since 1604 (though we learned a sizable portion of modern day Scots weren't keen on being joined with England now for a variety of reasons).

The frieze going around the dining room has various hunting scenes including this bizarre ostrich seemingly munching on a horseshoe.  I have no idea what that was about.

The garrison room had exhibits of different weapons and armor from around the world like this samurai equipment from Japan.  One of the St. Aubyn ancestors brought this back from their time serving in Hong Kong as an assistant to the Governor in 1904.

As cool as it was to see inside the castle, the gardens around the castle were just as impressive.  You could tell that they spent a lot of time and effort keeping the garden looking great.  This is the view looking down from the castle walls onto the garden far below.

 We spent a lot of time wandering around the garden and taking pictures.

There were many bright colored flowers blooming. 

On the way back, Derek and Lydia poked around in the tide pools and found lots of tiny crabs.

I had blogged earlier about how nerve wracking it was driving in England.  Here is a representative picture of the roads we traveled on in Cornwall.  Each side is a hedgerow (stacked stones with plants growing out of them - not something to drive up against) too tall to see over.  The road winds all over so you never have any idea if there is a car coming the other direction.  And yes, there are cars that will come the other direction on this "two lane road."  I read in a Rick Steves guidebook that when driving in England, there is no concept of "my side of the road" and "your side of the road."  There is just "the road" and it is communal property. 

We popped into the cute fishing village of Penberth for another hike.

 

Looking down on Penberth Cove, you can see the lines grooved into the stone dock from the fishing boats that are pulled in after each trip (there is a wheel at the left edge of the picture that cranks the boats up).  I imagine boats using those grooves over a century or more.

 

  

Our hike took us along the coast to enjoy the beautiful cliff-side scenery.  You can see a little of the seaside town of Porthcurno off in the distance (above the beach on the left side of the picture).

I found it very enjoyable to look out over the water from the high cliffs.

 

We got some good pictures of the kids.

 

We found lots of rocks we could climb on to get higher and have a better view (or just to have fun climbing rocks).

We took a quick visit to the Merry Maidens Stone Circle, a complete circle of nineteen standing stones.  The local legend that gave the circle its name is that 19 young women went out dancing in the field one Saturday night.  They perhaps lost track of time as midnight brought with it the Sabbath and they were still dancing, so they were literally petrified and the stones are all that is left of them.  The truth is more likely that this is yet another stone circle built by prehistoric people.