CORNWALL 2017: The Mevagissey Fishing Port

The same day we did the Spit Cliffs walk on a rainy afternoon (last post), we also did a walk-about in nearby Mevagissey that sunny morning.  Don't you love weather!

Mevagissey is only 6 miles SW from the St. Austell area, our homebase.

[Google image]

As we drove along the coast to get there, Pauline stopped the car to show us this view.

Now you know why Cornwall is a MUST for so many people.

Mevagissey is one of many wee fishing ports that makes Cornwall so idyllic.

It's population is only 2K.  

As you turn the corner, there she is.

We arrived while the tide was still mostly in (an important detail we're learning).

Look at how the town hugs its harbor.  It's their livelihood.

When you step back to get the bigger picture, it's a rugged livelihood.

But deep inside the harbor, you feel the coziness of it.

Dare you leave the breakwater, you pass the the massive rock formation to the open sea.

[Am still trying to find if it has a name, that rock!  Surely?!]

Did you see the wee lighthouse in the preceding collage, bottom-right image?

Once you reach it, you are "out to sea," so to speak.

The vantage point from the lighthouse that day highlighted this yellow beauty.

She's the Valhalla BH-9 trawler of the Mevagissey fleet.

How fun to look up these boats like they're people!

And how fun to see evidence that this truly is a fishing port.

While walking back from the lighthouse, guess what!

The tide was now out and we got to see the beached boats that still amaze us to no end.

So Astrid, of course, climbed down to search for treasures, of which she found many
(for her blue bag).

See what I mean about Cornwall?!  So idyllically wonderful.

Don't get me wrong...it has its own economic trials and tribulations.

BUT...it is a treasure to be found and taken care of while cherishing.

MALTA: The Fishing Village of Marsaxlokk

You know how you first try to get the lay of the land whenever you visit a new place?  Well, the day after we arrived in Malta, Saturday, we had a confab with our trip rep who helped us figure out the how and where and when of our 10 days.

That's when we discovered there would be a fishing market the next day, Sunday, in the quaint fishing village of Marsaxlokk...a definite tourist destination, she said.

Starting from our hotel in Bugibba, we took a bus to Valletta and then another bus to Marsaxlokk.

The 'x' in Maltese is the 'sh' sound, so, Marsaxlokk = MARsa- shlock.

It's a population of ca. 3500+ people.

The first thing we saw as we got off the bus and reached the harbor was the dockyard.

Big, clunky boats with years of hard work oozing out of them.

Then, turning the corner, we saw the market, lined up along the village street facing the shoreline.

Everything under the sun...except fish.  Where was the fish???

Theirs to know and ours to find out!

In the meantime, we started walking up and down the main street.

We knew there would be boats, of course, but these boats?

Colorful boats with their seeing eyes to protect them from mishaps at sea?!

You couldn't miss them if you tried.  They dotted the entire harbor.

And as you'd guess, fishermen came with them, sorting out their nets.

They're just doing their work while we tourists gawked.

A women's quilting bee came to mind.  HA!

Can you picture yourself spending a day at sea on one of these make-shift homes?

Can you imagine the sense of community such a place fosters?

About the time we passed the village square the second time, we decided to stop.

The church is the Parish Church of Our Lady of Pompei, from 1890.

It was the perfect place for a bathroom break, some koffie...and a bit of sun for Astrid!

"Our napkins have been cleaning happy faces since 1971." --Costa (UK)

Truth be told, immediately after koffie, we found a place to eat lunch.

Almost every restaurant/café was full/reserved, so we grabbed the first spot we found...on the street.

Prawns and sea bass...with the Maltese Cisk beer (pronounced CHisk).  Yummy.

And THEN we found the fish!

O M G.  Seafood I didn't need to see, really, but I did.

It was all there.

Right where the fishermen had done their thing for eons.

With women cleaning up after them, of course.

It's a way of life, isn't it.  Can you imagine it being your life?

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Then, guess what?  The next day, Monday, we rode the Hop-On-Hop-Off bus around the island...

...and passed Marsaxlook while sitting on top of the bus.

Even though it was from a different vantage point, it was definitely recognizable!

THIS is why the fishing village of Marsaxlokk is a tourist destination for Malta.

THIS.

The Zuiderzee Museum in Enkhuizen, NL

Put on your seatbelt because this one is quite the ride, which I want to keep together in one post.

This past Sunday Astrid and I drove 135km north to Enkhuizen to visit the Zuiderzee Museum on the shores of the IJsselmeer.  We had already visited the harbor briefly back in 2010, so I remembered it, but this time we were on a mission and we took Margreeth and Natascha with us.  Remember that they were the ones who encouraged us to buy the annual museum card, which we did.

So, here goes....

You enter the building, fetch your tickets, and grab the next boat to the open-air museum.

On that 15-minute boat ride, you pass the magnificent harbor of Enkhuizen, part of the museum fee.

And you end up at the chalk-factory chimneys, to start your open-air museum experience.

Before going off into the museum's town, we stopped at the bronze-age display near the chalk factory.

That's when I realized this museum was a lot about interactive play for kids of all ages.

That's the kind of museum I LOVE.

From the bronze-age site we walked along the shore to the museum's open-air village.

What you could see from the shore was its own special "museum."

But before we did anything else, we stopped at this darling café for koffie,

and to get our bearings (on a very off-n-on blustery, rainy day).

After koffie, first up was the fishing village.

(The Dutch use underground telephone lines today.)

The fun thing was to walk into the houses and see how they lived back then.

 And since it was the fishing village, we saw the fishing nets out everywhere.

Even real fish were being dried...which I wished I could have tried.

The windmill was nearby in the polder, where Astrid could demonstrate the drill for pumping out water.

As you'd guess, the animals were right at home, never guessing this was a museum.

 From the polder and fishing village we entered the Town Canal.
I just LOVE the little pedestrian bridges of the Netherlands, don't you?

I fell in love with all the boats everywhere within this open-air museum.
I love the Dutch harbors but canals are so cozy.

From that point we walked back-n-forth between the Town Canal and the Church Quarter.
After awhile my images started running together, but it doesn't matter.

We spent a lot of time in this man's sign/calligraphy shop.
It's a dying art and Astrid spent time talking to him intelligently about his profession.
She knows how hard it is because she once dabbled in it!

In fact, there were many professions/trades to see or watch in action.

I'm a sucker for tools of the trade, as you know by now.

 There even was a school where you could practice your penmanship skills.
See what I mean by interactive?!

Remember that this is an open-air museum.  It could be a real village!

 And just like everywhere, you had a chance to play.

The kids could even dress up from the dressing-up chest.
Doesn't this remind you of Humans of New York:  Microfashion!

 I don't think it gets better than this for an interactive museum.

Speaking of dressing up, there was even a room where you could find your shoe size
and try to walk around in wooden clogs.

You know the Dutch and their wooden shoes, of course.
They're everywhere, even if only for show.

 I told you this would be a ride!  There was something for everyone.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

As an aside, you may recall that we started our museum card in early May at another open-air museum, in Arnhem, NL:  the Openluchtmuseum.  I didn't think anything could get better than that.  But it did, with this Zuiderzee Museum in Enkhuizen.  There are many similarities but also many differences.

Both museums have got to be right up at the top of the list of all open-air museums anywhere!