Bernie in England 2006: Travel Diary Britain ’06 – 6th entry

This morning I woke up in Torquay on the English Riviera and after a good breakfast I started exploring the town on foot. The first thing I noticed was, that the architecture of the buildings was quite a bit different from houses in the average northern English city. Unlike in those cities, here plastered and painted facades dominated the appearance of the streets and plain brick-buildings were rather rare. I do like brick facades but I’m more a fan of plaster and stucco so I enjoyed the sight pretty much. Another thing that hit me soon afterwards was that there was no litter whatsoever lying around in the streets.
‘How do they do it?’, I wondered because despite the absence of ‘Littering will be punished’ – signs the streets were so immaculately clean. Perhaps it’s because of the lack of population there to litter the streets? Dunno.
Anyway, no matter how beautiful I might have found the town, it was still no match for the beauty of the seaside. From an elevated path running along the top of precipitously falling cliffs I enjoyed an absolutely stunning view of the sea – the best view of the sea I’d had in a long time! I mean, the beach in Crosby is sort of nice but it can’t be compared to this. After relishing this sight for a considerable time and thinking about the pure beauty of nature I returned to the town centre where I visited the tourist information to collect some pamphlets and incidentally learned that Torquay was the birthplace of Agatha Christie and has always been a great source of inspiration for her works. I’ve read some of her Miss Marple novels and seen some of the films so for me it was an interesting fact to know.
Next thing, I dragged myself up the steep hill to the outskirts of the town, leading to the library. Who in the world came up with that stupid cliché that

Britain

was a flat country? Bloody bullcrap!
Panting, I reached the place and managed to get myself 30 minutes of internet time and then I went to my car and headed off towards Newquay.
Actually I’d planned to arrive there at two in the afternoon which wouldn’t have been much of a problem if it hadn’t been for the road works and the queues caused by them. At one time I stood in place for half an hour and that in the sweltering heat of early afternoon! I really felt like starting a barbecue on one of the lanes and having a cold beer, hehe…
The heat of the asphalt would have certainly been enough to get some sausages done properly…
And after an hour of that queuing I finally found out that my car actually had air condition. Oh, sweet luxury!!
Of course I turned it up full power and by the time I reached Newquay I had almost forgotten that it was summer – partially because of the now chilly inside of my car and partially because of the clouds that had managed to cover up the sun just in time for my arrival at the beach. Unluckles. But it was still warm enough to walk around in nothing but shorts and so I spread my beach towel on the welcoming sand and soon I plunged into the crystal clear and quite cool sea water. The waves were really high so I couldn’t swim out and so I stayed standing in the shallow parts covered up to my chest in the water. It was so absolutely nice! Some time later I returned to the beach, rubbed myself down and then settled for a short nap – to wake up an hour later and notice that the water’s edge had been moving up all the time and had almost reached me…
At around six I showered and then left the beach to explore the town of Newquay – a town that’s definitely oriented towards accommodating people on holiday: internet cafes and arcades all the way. Really gets you into a proper holiday mood! Mightily hungry, I went to a takeaway and grabbed myself a yummy Doner and then I had a go on one of the arcade machines – the first time in ages! And now I’ll go party. Yeah!!