Five Days in Devon

Once our car arrived, we took advantage of the time before school started by taking a trip down to Devon, along the southern coast of England.  The weather was perfect the entire time and we had a lot of fun.

We stayed in a holiday apartment in Torquay, which was really nice because we were able to prepare our own breakfast each day and has the refrigerator and counter space to pack lunches for several of our day trips.  (Our apartment was a little quirky though- it was all one room except for the bathroom, but the bathroom walls didn't even reach the ceiling so it was still basically part of the same room.)

The day we arrived we did a bit of walking, just exploring the area and solidifying our plans for the week.

Day 1: Dartmoor National Park
We headed to Dartmoor without much of a plan beyond our starting point at one of the visitor centres.  We climbed a large hill to get to a tor that had steps carved into it so people can climb to the top.  We had a small snack when we got to the top before we climbed back down and found a great spot near some sunbathing horses to have a picnic.

The cows, horses, and sheep roam freely around the whole national park so we really got up close and personal with a few of them.

We drove around the narrow roads and found a few more tors and a stone circle to explore.

Day 2: Round Robin
We started our day in Paignton, where we got on an open-top bus for a ride over to Totnes.

Totnes is a cute old town with a  long, steep high street and a very old castle.  We picked up a few treats from a little bakery, walked up the high street and visited a street market, and went to the castle before heading back down for some Cornish pasties before the next leg of our round robin.

After a short break at the playground, we got on our riverboat that took us down to Dartmouth.

We realized when we arrived that Dartmouth was having a festival that day so things were busier that usual.  There was a running race going on and the Royal Regatta.  We walked around the festival booths for a bit and then decided to take the longer walk to visit Dartmouth Castle.  Brandon took the opportunity to have a nap in the carrier on my back while we walked (mostly uphill) and didn't wake up until we were in the castle.  It's a pretty neat castle with a great view, and they even had some activities going on for kids, so Andrew and Brandon got to dress up like pirates for a bit.  We got fish & chips for dinner before getting in line for our ferry to Kingswear.  The ferry ended up being delayed though because of a flying demonstration that was going to happen right over the water.  It was a high speed plane and the pilot did all kinds of maneuvers, so it was very loud but pretty cool to see.

After our ferry we got straight on the train to head back to Paignton.  The kids loved seeing the steam engines and all the named coaches before we boarded and they loved the idea of being on a train.

Day 3: Pool and Beach
Our holiday let had a great heated pool so we decided to spend the morning enjoying it.  The kids loved the alligator floats.

After going back to the room for lunch, we headed down to the beach for the afternoon.  The water was cold, but it was a beautiful sunny day and we all had a great time.

Day 4: Beach
We had originally planned for day 4 to be a second day in Dartmoor, but we decided that we'd rather spend the day at the beach, so that's what we did!  We got down there around 10:30 in the morning and finally understood why everyone had been set up so far from the water's edge the day before- the tide was still so high that there were only about six feet of rocky beach left!  We knew it would recede as the day went on so it wasn't a concern, but the steps down to the beach led directly into the water so we had to wade just to get to the dry part of the beach.

It was a great relaxing day.  The boys did a lot of rock collecting (Aaron focused on sea glass) and we all spent some time in the water and some time just hanging out on our blanket eating snacks.

Day 5: Kents Cavern
We checked out of our apartment in the morning but we wanted to have one more adventure before we headed home so we went to Kents Cavern.  It's a really old cave that had had a lot of excavation done in years past (possibly Agatha Christie's father was involved) and remains have been found of a very early human and some animals that no longer exist (or at least they're not the same now as they were then).  It was a guided tour inside the cavern and then there was a little walking trail behind it and a café connected to the gift shop, were we got our last Devon Cream Tea (with hot chocolate instead of tea) before we headed home.

Gloucester Cathedral

On one of our first weekends in England we decided to take a day trip to the Gloucester Cathedral.

There's a bus that goes pretty regularly over to Gloucester, which is part of the reason we chose this as our first little trip since our car was still on it's way across the ocean.  Andrew and Brandon were both excited about riding the "big bus" and loved having a row to themselves.

It was a short walk from the bus stop to the Cathedral.  It's a beautiful old building, though there's a lot of construction work being done to landscape the grounds right now so there were a lot of chain link fences and caution tape before we made it to the doors.

We bought our timed tickets for the crypt tour and then set off to explore.

First up were the cloisters.  This is where the monks used to live and was essentially a square corridor with rooms off of it and a courtyard in the middle.  They may look familiar to you as they were the halls of Hogwarts in some of the Harry Potter movies.

Harry Potter

Harry Potter

Harry Potter

They even have a Harry Potter pig- how awesome is this?!

The courtyard also had a pig.  (Apparently this is a thing in Gloucester.  I also saw a couple on the walk to and from the Cathedral.)

We walked around the rest of the main level of the Cathedral and visited several small chapels, overheard a choir rehearsing in a side room, and saw the final resting places of several notable figures.

There was a donations-accepted bounce and brunch event going on in one of the rooms, so we hung out there for a few minutes until our tour started.

The crypt tour was pretty neat. Our tour guide went all the way back to when some kind of monastery in the triple-digits AD and told us all the changes that have been made since that time, including major structural reinforcements to the archways in the crypt to keep the heavy Cathedral from sinking further into the ground.  The exterior walls of the crypt are a couple meters thick and the space would have been used as a shelter during times of war against the Welch.

The area in the middle of the crypt has these wide columns set down in the ground, which was the original floor level before the building started sinking.  You may recognize this room from Sherlock's Abominable Bride episode (near the end, as they're about to solve the case).

Apparently a Doctor Who Christmas special has also filmed here, I'm going to have to figure out which one and rewatch it!

Before we got back on the bus, we stopped in a little shop for some pasties for lunch.

All in all a great daytrip!