More Devon

We awoke to bright and sunny weather with just a few clouds; a glorious day. We wanted to visit some of the interesting sites in South Devon but the old “closed on Tuesdays” curse was upon us (this being Tuesday).

After much discussion and perusing of the National Trust brochure, we settled on Overbeck’s, the home of an eccentric Victorian scientist, which also has a beautiful tropical garden and ocean views—and open on Tuesdays. Perfect! We drove into Kingsbridge then through Marlborough, hoping to bypass Salcombe. A wrong turn took us on single lane roads into Salcombe. Since we were there anyway, we decided to walk around a bit.

Salcombe is a delightful little port town with a small harbor and many shops, very Carmel-like and decidedly “up market”. After a bit of exploration (including the oldest sweet shop in Devon where we purchased some clotted cream fudge and shortbread), we got directions to Overbeck’s and moved on.

The road to Overbeck’s has to be the worst experience of this trip; it was very narrow and steep, with unbelievably sharp curves and long stretches without a pullout. If you meet someone, it’s a long way to back up. After reaching our destination, we found that all the parking spaces were taken, many people had parked on the road (or, should we say, more like IN the road) and there was no place to wait, so we just left.

By the time we were out of there, we were exhausted from the tenseness of the drive, so we decided to have lunch close to home. We went to Stokenham to the Tradesman’s Arms, a quaint and cozy pub, where we had a very good lunch (and a pint). During lunch we overheard a conversation between the bartender and a local fellow sitting at the bar, talking about the Yanks and Germans and their general inability to navigate the local roads. We get it! Gives one a little more compassion for the novices on Highway One that we north coast locals like to bitch and moan about……

A short walk after lunch took us to the local church (still in use) which was built in the late fourteenth century (a previous church was built there two hundred years earlier); this was a surprise find and we had a great visit to an interesting site. Across the road from the church is the Church House Inn, where we made a reservation for dinner; we had a gourmet style meal in a pub setting, quite good. As high as the meal prices are in England, they seem cheap after being in Ireland.