Plymouth puente part one

 For those of you wondering a "puente" is an extended weekend including a holiday. May 1st and 2nd where holidays here in Spain and most people would take the Friday off as well. We did, and then I did something I have not done in a long time, I left the country.

For reasons that I might reveal later if things go as planned my husband and I went to Plymouth, England.

Getting to Plymouth was no mean feat. I think it took us about 12 hours of travel to get there. There might have been a beter way, but we went: Madrid to London, took a train, then a metro to Paddington Station and once there boarded a 4+  hour train to Plymouth.

On the way there I tried to get a couple shots of the quaint passing country side. The row houses with their chimneys...

...and the passing fields. However most of the time we were going to fast for a semi-decent shot. You will have to take my word for it, that there were a lot of sheep, horses, cows and even some alpaca. 

The scenery would go from inner-city grime, to small villages with a prominent pub and a beautiful church, to hill after endless rolling green hill of English country side.

My students will very often tell me that when they went to the US "it looked just like the movies" with a huge grin on their faces. This trip brought to me just exactly what they ment. I grew up on BBC productions, and I suppose that I should admit it to myself, I am something of an anglophile. I wanted to tell everyone too that it looked just exactly like I hoped that it would, and for some reason it made it seem a little less real.

Finally when we started passing Bristol there would be an occasional glimpse of the ocean. Once we had views of never ending ocean, we were a stones throw away from Plymouth.

Most of this first day was just the journey of getting here. We got in after 6pm and did not take a lot of pictures. But I want to take some photos as proof. This is England, in May, and the sun is shining. My husband pretty much always has good weather when he travels to the UK. 

The below picture is part of a greenway that runs through the city, more on that tomorrow.

Our first view of Plymouth University under a blue sky.

We checked in, set down our bags and went in search of dinner down the little winding streets of this charming town.

More tomorrow.