Just when I was wondering if the English summer ever gets better than windy, mostly cloudy with intermittent showers, and highs in the upper 50s and low 60s, we had a beautiful day.  Today it was mostly sunny, no wind, and in the upper 60s.  I only had to wear one jacket layer instead of two.  Yippee!  It’s summertime in Britain!

We visited an abbey this morning.  It was very pretty and had beautiful gardens.  Luckily, that wasn’t the end of the day, because I was still mostly asleep that early in the morning and had a hard time getting excited about it.

The next stop was Polperro, a fishing village in southwest England on the coast of the English Channel.  It was a charming town and very picturesque.  The tide was out and it was interesting to see so many small boats sitting on the muddy shore, waiting for the tide to come in to set them afloat again.  With the sun shining and our single jackets unzipped, we enjoyed walking around the village.

After that, we went to Plymouth.  The Mayflower left from Plymouth and we had a chance to climb the “Mayflower steps”–the stairs the Pilgrims used to board the Mayflower.  I tried to see Massachusetts, but it was too far away.  We also had an hour harbor cruise.  Plymouth has one of the three best natural harbors in the world and is a major base of the British navy.

To finish the day, we had a group dinner at a pub that opened in 1250 (the year, not the time of day).  I had steak pie and STP (sticky toffee pudding) with clotted cream.  Everything was delicious except the clotted cream.  It tasted like butter to me and eating a lump of butter as a garnish didn’t rate “delicious” on my scale.  It was an interesting day experiencing the local culture and the local food in small towns.