Time to Walk: The South West Coast Path : Day 32: Mawnan Smith to St Mawes

Weather: Not a cloud in the sky, gentle breeze, warm

Distance covered today: 24.3km ( 15.1mi)

Last night's B&B: Trelawne Hotel

% Complete: Cumulative distance: 58.2%: 590.4km

Total Ascent/Total Descent: 424m/480m

GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 32 (click!)

What a difference a day makes! As promised, the wind and rain were replaced by a cloudless sky, a gentle cooling breeze and blue sea. Even the path was different; gentle ups and downs and no mud at all. In fact, for the last half of the walk, I was actually walking on a metalled path! This was undoubtedly the easiest walk I have had on the Coast Path! So much so that I arrived in Falmouth just after 12.30, having circumnavigated Pendennis Castle, at least a couple of hours earlier than expected!

Then the spring tide phenomenon struck again. Given I was so early, I was planning to catch the ferry to St Mawes where I will be staying tonight, and then catch another ferry across to Place. I would then walk round St Anthony Head on the Roseland Peninsula and return by ferry to St Mawes for the night. That way I would shorten what looks to be an arduous leg tomorrow.

Only, now I discover the Falmouth-St Mawes 13.15 sailing has been cancelled because of a lack of water in the spring low tide and I'm sitting in a tearoom writing this. I have no idea whether the St Mawes-Place ferry will be even longer delayed, but I'll soon find out. I may not have the time to get round the peninsula and back in time to catch the last ferry back to St Mawes! The plot thickens!

Meanwhile, I am staying tonight at Braganza! The following is an extract from the first page of the book "The Bronski House" by Philip Marsden.

"There was a house I knew as a child, grey-fronted, steep-lawned, with a bird's-eye view of a Cornish harbour. The house was set apart from the village, in its own ring of elm trees. From the lawn, you looked down the slope and over the treetops to a granite quay. The quay curled around the fishing tenders which bobbed about inside it. Beyond them, the bay widened towards a pair of headlands fringed with pine trees, a kind of gateway to the plains of the open sea

"In front of the house was a monkey-puzzle.It was tall and very straight with no branches until right at the top where a Medusa'a head of bracts burst out of the trunk. The tree had been planted by a sea-captain, one hundred and fifty years earlier. His last mission had been to take a member of the Portuguese royal family into exile in South America. For this he had been rewarded with a casket of of gold and a bag of araucaria seeds. The gold he used to build the house. The seeds he planted in front of it. He called the house Braganza"

The online description of the book includes the following "In the summer of 1992, accompanied by Philip Marsden, the exiled poet Zofia Hinska stepped into the Belorussian village where she had spent her childhood. The Bronski House is in part the remarkable story of what she found. It is also the story of her mother, Helena Bronska - of her coming of age during the Russian revolution, her dramatic escapes from Bolsheviks, Germans and partisans, of her love and loss in a now vanished world. It brilliantly reconstructs a world which vanished in 1939 when Soviet tanks rolled into eastern Poland."

Last year, after completing the Coast Path trip, Veronica and I attended a very significant social occasion in St Mawes, hosted by close friends. We booked accommodation quite coincidentally in Braganza; or perhaps not quite so coincidentally, because when I was researching places to stay, the name had struck me. From our time living in Portugal, we were well aware that Braganza was the name of the Portuguese royal family and I wondered how this little piece of Portugal had come to England.

I had an email exchange with the proprietress and she very politely and gently regretted that she was away on our proposed dates. After further entertaining exchanges, she suddenly offered to let one of her former staff open the house for us, but regretted that she wouldn't be able to meet us.I was most impressed at all this and also interested that her name was Krysia, a most unusual name that seemed to me to be of East European origin, despite her speaking regulation received pronunciation.

On arrival there, I was struck by the paintings of beautiful women and all the strange and foreign objects displayed around the house. This was no ordinary B&B! This was a grand house, having to act as a B&B to make ends meet. I asked our temporary hostess. She didn't know the history, but she went to the library and produced the book from which I quoted earlier for me to read. It was obvious! Krysia had to be Zofia's daughter! She is!

Tonight I am finally going to meet Krysia. I am actually quite nervous about it. That is if I make it across the estuary in time!

I did make it across the estuary on time and duly met Krysia! In the nature of these things, and at first meeting, we were suitably restrained, but I did ask her about how accurate the book really is. In the book Zofia is described as an awful sailor. Krysia told me that in fact her mother was quite a good sailor! She said that in general the book describes the history very well, but she just feels she knew her mother better than the author.

Fair enough!

A change of season in a day!

Pendennis Castle on the horizon

Dappled sunshine on dry paths! Bliss!

An interesting memorial to the Home Guard (Dad's Army!). "After their day's work (they) nightly patrolled this coast, armed and violent against German landings. Thus they watched 1,000 dawns appear across these great waters which form our country's moat". Take that, you Remoaners!

Swanpool beyond the beach (though as my guidebook takes it "probably Swamp-pool rather than the the more graceful connotation"!

Cormorants (?!) swanning in Swanpool

At last, beach huts emerge! I get the feeling they will become increasingly common as I approach the South East!

And would you believe it! Swimmers in the sea without wetsuits! The first of the spring. Of course the girls are more adventurous. Always the case with cold water. Why?

A bunch of tinies in uniform, jumping off a cliff into welcoming arms. Before I became a grandpa, I wouldn't even have noticed them!

A couple of generations previous. Doing what they do....

A fascinating construction above the path. Why?

The impressive Falmouth Hotel

The moat at Pendennis Castle. During the Civil War, the starving Royalists were allowed to surrender and exit the castle with full military honours. I would like to know more....