Douglas Adams Travel: Pretty, Pretty Penzance

“On this particular Thursday, something was moving quietly through the ionosphere many miles above the surface of the planet; several somethings in fact, several dozen huge yellow chunky slablike somethings, huge as office blocks, silent as birds…The huge yellow something went unnoticed at Goonhilly…”

HHGTTG

I was headed for Goonhilly Earth Station with my unrelenting companion: a head cold.
My huge yellow chunky something was the result of blowing my nose.
I squeezed myself and my one bag into a solo railway cabin and noted my assigned berth number: 43. My Douglas Adams Travel to 42 places pilgrimage magic was a digit off.

Sleeper trains are an efficient way to combine an unconscious state with travel. I fell asleep in London and woke up in Cornwall. 

When I arrived at six am, Penzance was quiet as a plague town. It appeared to be populated only by me and lorries making morning deliveries. Had I done my research, or in fact been fully awake and thinking clearly, I would have hailed a cab to my B&B.

There are many wonderful B&Bs in Penzance. I stayed at Keigwyn House and recommend it, but I wish I had done a bit more planning on how to get there from the station before I fell asleep on the train. On Google maps, it looked like a short walk: Market Jew Street connects through Greenmarket to Alverton Road, make a left on Alexandria and you’re there. I had my sturdy hiking boots and my feet worked perfectly well, even if my sinuses didn’t. I figured I’d just walk. I didn’t check Google Earth, the Map My Walk App, or look at a route with elevation gain. That was a huge oversight in Penzance. 

I rattled my wheeled bag, shoulder bag, and overstuffed purse across the rough streets and started to walk. The sidewalk wasn’t made of cobbles but it wasn’t smooth concrete either. Penzance is paved with stones. Stones larger and more irregular than bricks. Stones laid hundreds of years ago, to create a pedestrian way, raised and separated from the road by an iron railing. 

It is not at all what an American would call a sidewalk. It is a difficult surface to roll a suitcase all the way up. Though at first the way seemed to promise only a slight rise at the station end, I soon saw my mistake. I came around a corner and watched the walkway get steeper and steeper, topped with set after set of stairs. Up. Up. Up. Up. Up. Near the top, a statue. I huffed and wheezed and puffed and stopped regularly to blow my nose and catch my breath. My shoulder ached from the pulling and the constant vibration of wheels on stone up to bag into handle through hand along arm and absorbed into my aching shoulder.

Penzance is a sea town. The underlying geography is a series of hills and cliffs that rise to keep watch over the Atlantic. My route could have been fairly flat if I’d stuck to Quay Street and Wharf Road, rolling along the sea. Instead, lurching up the incline, passing shop after shop not yet open for the day, it was easy to imagine how, over centuries, the steep grades gradually got topped off with buildings. Someone willing to hike wanted a good view. Soon, there were neighbors. Then alarmingly, the whole thing was a village dangerously perched in a series of terraces from the sea wall to the summit. 

Without luggage, Penzance streets are marvelous to explore on foot. Main roads, edged with thick stone retaining walls and paved stone walkways, lead to shops, Boots, and Cornish Pasty sellers. Off the busy roads, wedges of door stoops shim up the houses from the steep angle of the streets. Whitewashed walls rise exactly perpendicular to the sidewalks. No front yards, front gates, or front walks. 

Buildings in Penzance are made from only a few materials. Some are local grey-beige fieldstone, fitted and mortared by masons who died in the 18^th Century. Some are common red brick. Some are a conglomerate of brick and stone, but they are all, without fail, made of materials that can withstand the pummeling of storms rushing onshore from the sea. 

Because Penzance is a small peninsula, views from the hilltop streets running both North to South and East to West have views of the sea. Cottages are partitioned with low grey or white painted walls, and the narrow alleyways are patrolled by friendly cats looking for a handout.

Trudging uphill, cursing the cold that curtailed my breathing, I finally got close enough to see the statue at the top. I presumed it was a statue of Davy since D-A-V-Y was etched into the plinth. I stopped to pant beneath the white carved figure.

He was impressive in early 19^th century stockings, knee breeches, waistcoat, and a day jacket. Sir Humphrey Davy is a Penzance native son. I later learned he was a famous chemist, poet, inventor of electrochemistry, and the reason why Victor Frankenstein traveled to Britain before undertaking the creation of his monster’s bride. 

Welcomed by the statue, my reward for the uphill trudge was just beyond it: Finally, a bit of flat. But only a bit. Soon I was headed straight back down the other side of the steep hill—back down toward the ocean I had seen from the train station. My bag went down first. I considered that a barely controlled fall in front of me would be better than being run over by my own suitcase if I lost control. I went slowly on the extremely steep street, counting numbers until I found Keigwyn House. Four stories, accessed by twelve steps up from the street. My en suite room was on the first floor, which I would be extremely thankful for after being attacked by The Lizard.

I urge you again to take my Traveller’s Tip: Check a topographical map before deciding how far any given walk will be or how long it will take you to get there.

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