Continue the story please This weekend my host family and I went to Plymouth - a trip I was really looking forward to. As I
work in a library in the afternoons, I had done some preparation before we left and found out what I
could about the city. The first thing that really surprised me was how many Plymouths there are in
the world - about 35, in the USA, in Canada, New Zealand and even in the Caribbean!
Plymouth is the third largest city in the south of England. It is a very popular tourist destination something I can well understand after my day there.
We set off early in the morming so that we would have enough time to see everything. Plymouth has
a strong maritime tradition and has been an important naval base since the sixteenth century. When
we arrived, we went down to the harbour first. That was great: all the big, impressive ships and the
blue sea in the background. The highight of that part of the day was a trip on a pleasure boat.
After lunch at one of the many small restaurants at the quayside we went to the exhibition centre
called the Dome. There we watched an audio-visual presentation about the history of Plymouth, which
was fascinating. At school in Austria I had read something about Sir Francis Drake and also about the
Pilgrims, but I had no idea of the link to Plymouth. Drake was the first Englishman to sail into the
Pacific. In 1588 he masterminded the defeat of the Spanish Armada - people say he was playing a
game of bowls (which he insisted on finishing!) when the Spanish ships sailed up the Channel to invade
Britain. One of the most famous ships which left Plymouth was the Mayflower with the Pilgrims in
1620. These are just a few of the facts I leamed at the Dome.
Finally we strolled around a little bit in the town centre, did some shopping, had aftermoon
tea and then decided it was time to leave. And that was when the trouble started...