PORTSMOUTH (PART 1)

I've not long returned from what will probably be my last trip away from home this year. My old friend from uni days (we've known one another 55 years this month) offered to go away on holiday with me for a few days. She had suggested Portsmouth as a possible destination and, as I have never been there, I decided "why not?", although I must confess I did not really think there would be much to see. How wrong was I?

We booked into a hotel right down by the harbour and my train arrived at Portsmouth Harbour station, despite engineering works on the outward journey on a Sunday which involved a bus service between Arundel and Barnham. The train station was a few minutes' walk to our hotel and a few minutes' walk to the Historic Dockyard. My friend had arrived by car and we met up in the hotel foyer at 2pm.

Now, I don't know if any of you know Portsmouth well, but the Historic Dockyard is a must to see.  My friend had researched it well and had discovered, if we booked online and bought Ultimate Explorer tickets, which only cost a few pounds more than the day ticket, we could visit the dockyard for a whole year. It was certainly a wise move as a day is not enough to see everything there is to see. Having arrived in Portsmouth at 2pm, we immediately strolled to the dockyard at 3, only to discover that one of the things I wanted to see (a submarine) was not open on Mondays or Tuesdays. As I was returning home on Wednesday, I only had that day to see it. So I caught the 15.30 free crossing over to Gosport where the submarine is docked and was the last on board for that afternoon.

I wanted to get a feel for what it is like to be on board a submarine and it was a wonderful experience. I got to chat with one of the guides all to myself. He told me had worked on the Polaris submarines in his youth. There were normally 65 people on board and I tried to imagine how cramped and claustrophobic it must feel particularly when submerged under water. Here are a few pictures of it.

The following day, it took us all day to look around the Mary Rose exhibition and HMS Victory. More about that next week. There are so many photos to put on one post and I was absolutely blown away by what there was to see. If you have never been, I can thoroughly recommend Portsmouth's Historic Dockyard, but don't imagine you can see it all in a day - you need at least two days if not more to see a fraction of it. I'll get together more photos for my next post.