Monday 6 July 2015

Long weekend in sunny Devon

We had a lovely long weekend away staying close to Bideford in Devon. James' friend from work had booked a weekend away and had to go away with work, so him and his family very kindly asked if we'd like to go instead. So we asked some family to look after our dog, feed the chooks and water the veg and off we went!

We spent a day in Tintagel in Cornwall and went to the castle where legend has it King Arthur lived. There are a massive quantity of stairs leading to the top of the cliff and little man climbed every one, he was a trooper. Honestly he walked better than a lot of adults there, I was super proud.


The bay below Tintagel castle, with Merlin's cave.

Just some of the steps to the castle










Waterfall to the cove at Tintagel

 

The old post office in Tintagel is a 14th century medieval manor house and is also very pretty. On the way home we stopped at the beach in Sandymouth, as little man just didn't stop asking to go to the beach.





We also went to Ilfracombe and walked around the harbour and visited the beach at Instow. They had amazing sand dunes there and the little man was in his element.





Today we stopped at a little village called Clovelly. It is still all owned by one family as part of an estate and you have to pay to walk around the village. This goes against the grain with me but it was a beautiful place that hasn't changed in hundreds of years and was well worth the charge. The harbour dates back to the 14th century and some of the houses are around 500 years old. They still use sledges to move goods around the very steep cobbled streets as cars are not allowed into the village.




The house to the right is the oldest house in the village built in the 1300's. It had evidently been added to since.




Charles Kingsley's house, the writer of The Water Babies.





The kids were so good all weekend and there wasn't a peep from either of them, little man in particular loved every minute and was manic from the moment he got up until he was fast asleep at 7pm. He really enjoyed a little bit of attention and after all the work we've been doing on the house and garden he deserves some time.

8 comments:

  1. What a lovely weekend you and your family had.......and thanks for reminding me of the several long ago holidays that I had in that area, of the many walks we did, of the many happy memories that we shared.

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    1. You're welcome Vera, glad the pictures brought back happy memories.

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  2. What lovely friends to have, nothing beats an impromptu week end away, My mum lived up the road from Tintagel had many a visit there :-)

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    1. Dawn, we are the most fastidious planners and it was so refreshing to do something spontaneous. There was no internet so I couldn't even endlessly research where to go the next day or trawl trip advisor! Tintagel is the most beautiful place, I loved it.

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  3. what gorgeous pics...of your vacation spot and pics in your previous posts about building the children's play area. you have a very beautiful family and i am sure that your children loved this vacation....and will love playing in their new play area. i am very impressed with all that you do!

    your friend,
    kymber

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    1. Wee man loved it immensely, he said the only thing that was wrong was he didn't get to go on a plane, cheeky beggar!

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  4. England has so many nice places like that. Unspoiled. The beaches on the East Coast here, at least the one's I can get to, are wall to wall condos and hotels.

    Some places in England are like going back in time hundreds of years. I don't know how you have kept them that way. I wish we had something similar.

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  5. The English aren't much keen on change, that helps protect a lot of it, along with draconian planning laws ;-)

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