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British Mensa Travel Special Interest Group |
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Plymouth
Ho! by Marie Jain Having seen my name in print in the New Members section of the Autumn issue of VISA, I felt inspired to go 'somewhere' and write an article for you. Brighton being too close to warrant the need for all that exciting packing - spending two anticipatory weeks trying to decide what clothes to take and then taking everything anyway - I decided to roam a little further and go and impose myself on some friends in Plymouth. In the summer when the students leave and the tourists arrive, Plymouth can be quite busy, but luckily for me it's one of those places that really IS worth visiting any time of the year. A few years ago I went to Greece, and spent ages trying to decide from all the islands which would offer me the essential mix of culture, entertainment and intellectual stimulation (although converting the bill into Sterling was about as intellectual as I got!), as I like a holiday that satisfies all my inner cravings. With Plymouth, although a much less heady experience than leaning over the teeny weeny bridge hovering above the Corinth Canal, it does have something for 'all of me'! So, I'll start with my wild and hedonistic side - lager and night-clubs!! Yes, Plymouth, like any other student city, has LOADS of bars and clubs. We journeyed through a few bars (I liked Pharaoh's in Southside Street, but this is partly because we had to queue to get in, so by the time we got through the door I had convinced myself I was one of the privileged few. But I am told that "they keep a good pint".) Most bars and clubs are in infamous Union Street (I would advise taking a taxi, lots of friends, and not talking to strangers), but there are others around the Barbican area, and in the town centre. My general experience with clubs is that if you avoid the mainstream places you avoid the mainstream (fighting/vomiting) people. Although Union Street has a none-too-savoury reputation, I have been 'clubbing' in Plymouth on and off for 16 years and have never encountered any trouble, so I think really it's much the same as anywhere else. So, after tasting the delights of a few bars in the Barbican we went into a small, bare and tacky-looking club called Detroit City. (I think of my £1 entrance fee 95p was spent on the DJ and the cheerful and efficient bar staff, and 5p on the decor.) But it was dark, I was drinking pints, and dancing to the loud, pulsating motown and funk music, so what did I care? It was small but lively and friendly, and I would definitely recommend it over the 'normal' night-clubs. Finally, at about 2.30am, we staggered out, and, deciding that we were friends with everyone in the whole world (as you do!), we waited unafraid in Union Street for a taxi to take us home, which it did with alacrity. Now, just in case you think that I spend all my time in bars drinking and smiling in a dopey (drunk) kind of way, on Sunday I satisfied my 'natural' side, and took up the offer from a friend to catch the bus from Plymouth bus station (located near the city centre) out to Princetown - a small, quiet village on the edge of Dartmoor. The 12 o'clock bus was the earliest we/I could manage so, unsuitably equipped with no map, one waterproof (mine, ha! ha!), four chocolate biscuits, me in my platform trainers and he in his suede ones, off we eagerly went! The bus journey took about an hour through some beautiful rolling countryside, with many tors scattered about us and sheep nonchalantly crossing in front of our almost empty bus. Once at Princetown we 'savoured' the local toilet facilities, decided we/I were sobering up now, and set off on a big round-the-hill type of trail (No, I didn't pay any attention to where we were going). It was one of those beautiful autumn days when there's nowhere else to be but out in the country. It was sunny (albeit mostly on all the other hills in the distance), sometimes warm, and sprightly dry. As we strolled along the path, picking up tips of what we SHOULD be wearing as we passed others more sensible than ourselves, we chatted about his recent trip to the States. "If you'd ever been on holiday with me," he said, "you'd realise I have absolutely no sense of direction. If I think it's one way, then we ALWAYS go the other way." I laughed gaily at his amusing tails and followed him deeper into the moors. Time passed. "Why don't we forget the trail and go up to the top of that hill instead?", he suggested over his shoulder. The majority of my Mensa qualification having been destroyed by the alcohol of the night before, and not knowing which trail we were on anyway, I happily agreed. More time passed as we plodded through the long grass, over the unpredictable and uneven terrain. "This looks like marsh grass", he said, breaking the silence that had arisen as we concentrated on working out where our feet were going. Needless to say, it was not long before I got that sinking feeling you would never expect to experience while wearing platforms. We tried to retrace our steps, but it all just looked the same. Finally, we spotted some coloured Berghaus-like specks in the distance, and for lack of a better plan decided to head for them. Did we panic you ask? No, of course not. We had our wits about us sufficiently to appreciate the surreal-looking fungi which we passed every few steps, and an extremely fat and hairy orange and black caterpillar that looked decidedly out of place, as if it had been dropped from a passing alien spacecraft, onto the brown and purple moor. We managed to jump lithely across two streams (well, he jumped lithely - I just threw myself at him and hoped he'd catch me before I slipped down the boulder I was aiming for, and landed in the icy stream). I'm not a very brave person, especially with only two chocolate biscuits left, so when we finally hit the trail path again I felt like I'd landed in Piccadilly Circus! We strolled casually back to the village and decided to head off across a stream which actually had a bridge, and go take a look at Dartmoor prison instead. Here we reached a dead end opposite the quiet but secretive-looking prison entrance, so we decided to jump off a rather high wall into the road below, and congratulated ourselves on our miraculously safe landings by eating the last two chocolate biscuits. (Why do walls never look so high from the top as they so obviously are from the bottom??) Back in the village, we went into the visitors centre. This consisted of a well laid out shop with a good range of stock and an informative display on the surrounding area. The staff were very friendly, especially to younger visitors, and after buying a couple of presents for my nieces, my companion and I went over to one of the pubs across the road for a nice quiet pint. I must say here, this we actually did remarkably well! The timing, that is! While we sat quietly in the corner drinking our pints and discussing the merits of everyone else's backpacks strewn around us, thunder raged outside, followed rapidly by a long and spectacular downpour. Forced to stay inside and have another drink, we sat it out, feeling very smug that we hadn't got everything wrong that day, and caught the last bus back into Plymouth at 5pm. I was pleased to see as we sped up and down the glistening roads that all the sheep still had their brilliant blue and shocking pink paint splodges that they were marked with. I'd almost expected all that torrential rain to have washed them off. I remarked to my friend how truly fresh and newly-created the moors looked after the rain...and promptly fell fast asleep, undoubtedly with my mouth open. What an adventurer!! The next day, a wet but bright October Monday, found me and my daypack strolling in the sunshine through the old part of Plymouth, The Barbican, with a handful of leaflets from the Tourist Information shop and that look of wide-eyed wonderment that is one of my favourite parts of travelling! (However, I am a fraud. Generations of my family live in Plymouth and I know the place like the back of my hand, but having spent £55 on my train ticket I felt I'd earned the right to feel and look like a tourist!) Now, my favourite pastimes are those that come under the heading of 'Free and Juvenile' entertainment! For those of you with leather soled shoes, the steep and narrow cobbled back streets of the Barbican can be quite exciting after a good downpour, cheaper than the artificial ski slope outside town (£8 for 1.5 hrs) - and I'm sure you can go just as fast! If you manage to stop yourself before you follow the Pilgrims of 1620 down the Mayflower Steps, you can skid left and visit the Dartington Glass factory, which I did, and enjoyed very much. There are regular free glass-blowing displays, which I found absolutely fascinating to see so close up, and when I was there a nice lady walked around through the audience describing the process to everyone as it happened. The large gift shop attached contains a varied range of products, ideal for gifts, and I found things which I liked ranging from 25p to £70. This was a pleasant surprise to me, as my idea of glassware is something which holds beer! Being a naturally clumsy person I have never bothered to appreciate the delicate and exquisite intricacies of glassware design, as it all looks the same when scattered, in a thousand twinkling pieces, on my kitchen floor. However, there were many sale items of perfect-looking imperfects, which I believe is the case all year round, and from which I selected a Christmas present for my pretty-and-breakable-things collecting sister. So, other than visiting relatives and trying to shop until I dropped (Plymouth has lots of lovely shops, and many homely or trendy-looking coffee bars for when your feet need a rest), that was about my long weekend. So I didn't get to go to the Gin Distillery, the Dome Museum, the Aquarium, the Elizabethan House, or any of the other many attractions of central Plymouth. Nor did I partake of my favourite tourist activity, (which everyone now refuses to do with me as I try to go every time I visit Plymouth), which is a boat trip. There is one which leaves from the Mayflower Steps, and gives you a guided tour of the Dockyards and the Warships which are currently there; but the best in my mind is to take the Cremyll ferry over to Cornwall (I think £1 each way and it's about as big as a bath), and walk over the hills to the next village. The views
on a clear day are lovely, although I always feel on entering Cornwall
that I need to either take my passport or walk ashore proclaiming "I
am the second-born of a Son of Kernow". Cornwall is incredible in
its beauty, and I do love it, especially in the Winter, but Plymouth is
just so much more fun!! Try it! First published in VISA issue 32 (spring 1999). For more details on Plymouth, visit Plymouth City Council's website. |