Plymouth !

We had the misfortune of finding ourselves in Plymouth, yesterday!! ;-)

We had to take my car to a specialist garage to have its tyres replaced

and the very nice people at Snows Toyota dropped us into Plymouth,

for a few hours, whilst the said job was done.

As you can gather, I am not a Plymouth lover.

So what did we do?  

Firstly, we wandered through The Barbican.

If you don't know, a barbican is a fortified gate and it is said that

 the name probably comes from the 'Castle Barbican',

 an entrance to the late medieval fortress which 

guarded access to the Cattewater, before the Royal Citadel was built.

The Cattewater is the stretch of water where the mouth of the River Plym

meets Plymouth Sound.

The Barbican was once home to Plymouth's fish market.

We then made our way from The Barbican to The Hoe,

taking in the sights, which, I have to admit 

were very acceptable!

Plymouth has masses of maritime history and it is a wonderful

 resource for anyone studying the subject.

Smeaton's Tower is a famous landmark, it being the third Eddystone

Lighthouse. It was dismantled in 1877 and rebuilt on Plymouth Hoe.

It's designer was John Smeaton, a notable civil engineer.

The Royal Citadel (above) is 17th century fortress,

 built to defend the coastline from the Dutch.

And here's Plymouth Lido (above) which built in 1935.

Below: Looking beyond the lido, towards Drake Island.

And here's the famous man himself:

 Sir Francis Drake; Plymouth's most famous character!


Bowls was off the menu but we did sit and partake of a cup of coffee,

enjoying the views as we chatted and sipped.

We made our way to the city centre, which I'm afraid does nothing for me

and luckily we didn't have too much time to spend there before meeting our 

driver, who drove us back to the garage.

I doubt we will do Plymouth again in a hurry (although I actually did enjoy

our brief trip)...probably the next time I need new tyres...

well, not me you understand...the car!  ;-)

;-)