Plymouth

Today, we went to Plymouth. We attempted to go to the aquarium. Sadly, it was closed.

We did make it to the Mayflower Steps. We went to both the officially recognized ones, which are about 100 feet from the location of the originals, and the original ones, which are now under the pub where we had lunch. As the menu says, the best guess for the proper location of where the Pilgrims departed from is "under the ladies toilet."

We also went to the Mayflower museum at the Visitors' Centre. We watched a short film about Plymouth first. We had some technical difficulties with it (apparently, they had forgotten to turn the projector on this morning!), but eventually everything worked as planned. We then went into the next part of the museum, which consisted of Mayflower exhibits. The most notable part were two items near each other which stated that we really don't know what the Mayflower looked like, but here is our best guess, and "this is the Mayflower II, an exact replica of the original." Try to reconcile that!

We also stopped into several shops in Plymouth, including the local Edinburgh Woolen Mill. We searched for the local Build-a-Bear, but we were unable to locate it. We did, however, find the local Sports World. We will be returning to Plymouth in a few weeks to try the aquarium again. Hopefully, it will be open this time!

We also saw several places at the Plymouth Hoe. The first thing we saw was the local lighthouse, Smeaton's Tower. It was originally built in 1759 about 14 miles south of its present location, but was relocated in full in 1877. It now stands just past the Plymouth Royal Citadel, a fortress built during the reign of Charles II (r. 1660-1685). The Citadel was officially built to defend the port of Plymouth in light of the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1664-1667), but was built in such a way that the guns could fire on the town, which had supported Parliament in the Civil War, a subject about which Charles understandably held a bit of a grudge. It is still used by the British Army today.

Beyond the lighthouse and Royal Citadel, there are a series of terraces built on the seacoast (a mix of beach and cliffs) between the 1830s and 1890s. At the end of the small harbour formed by the terraces, there is a public swimming pool known as the Tinside Pool, which was built in 1935. The Tinside Pool is still closed for the winter; however, it will be open from May to September. It was closed in 1992 because it was literally falling apart, but it became a Grade II Listed Building (the lowest of the three grades of historic buildings in England) in 1998 and re-opened after a major renovation in 2005. Interestingly, it is built on the site from which Drake, according to legend, sailed off to fight the Spanish Armada in 1588. Like most legends, this one probably didn't happen. If I had to venture a guess, I'd say he took the five minute walk back down to the main harbour, where he set out to fight the Spanish.