Falmouth, England

Today we are in Falmouth on England's south coast near Lands End. Although we were warned of cold weather it was quite nice especially in the sun. The temperature is in the low seventies.

Last night was another time that we had to change our clocks by an hour  and will be changing every night for the next couple of nights. Portugal and the British Isles are in one time zone and the rest of western Europe is in another. As a result, going from Spain to England requires a change backward; tonight we turn the clocks forward as we approach La Havre, France; the next night we set the clocks back as we go to Dover, England; the last night we change the clocks forward again as we sail to Amsterdam, Netherlands. If a clock change is necessary on a day that we are at sea the change is made at noon, otherwise the
change is made at 2:00 AM. You would be surprised by the number of people find it confusing.

We are docked in Falmouth at Queen's Quay and we share the pier from the Royal Navy, the HMS Echo. Its difficult what type of ship it is but it is somewhat small and has no apparent armament on the decks. I suspect it is a maintenance ship or something.

UPDATE: HMS Echo is a multi-role hydrographic survey ship according to Wikipedia.

This is the second time we have been to Falmouth (or more if you add the Falmouth Harbour in Antigua) as we stopped here on a transatlantic cruise on the Royal Carribean's Brilliance of the Seas. Because the Brilliance was a much larger ship than the Prinsendam we had to anchor out then but the Prinsendam is able to get into the harbor. From the pier there were shuttle buses to the beginning of the high street. Our first stop there was the Church of King Charles the Martyr, dedicated to King Charles I, the second of England's Stuart monarchs. During the English Civil War, Charles was attained by the parliament and was beheaded in 1649. The photo is a copy of Charles's Death Warrant signed by members of parliament including Oliver Cromwell. I asked a volunteer
in the church why the folks were Royalists (as opposed to Parliamentarians) during the Civil War and she said that the major land owner in the area was a Royalist so the local people depending on him were naturally also Royalists.

We strolled down most of Market Street and Church Street and the small streets the cut off of them. One of the unique streets is called Jacob's Ladder which is about a hundred or so steps straight up! The walk up is a bear but going back down is a snap. We neglected to hit it the last time here so we had to do it this time.

Back to the ship it was a typical afternoon with Bingo. Only one more session of Bingo and that will be in Dover. This cruise winnings in Bingo has been scant. Who knows, maybe we'll win the big one in Dover. (Yeah, right!)