UK and Ireland - day 1 (2015-09-10)

Our flight from Vancouver to Heathrow was uncomfortable but uneventful.  The line up (or queue as they say in England) at immigration was horrendous, and it took us an hour and a half to get to the desk.  After that it was plain sailing, except of course we had missed our 3:30 pm bus to Portsmouth.  Five pounds later we were booked on the 5:30 pm bus and so had time to pick up a quick dinner at M&S Simply Food.  The bus trip was almost on time, but it was 9 pm by the time we arrived at the B&B in Portsmouth....a long day!!  The B&B is very clean and comfortable, and sleep came easily initially, but deteriorated as the night wore on, and our biological clocks thought that we should be awake.  

This morning, after a very satisfying full English breakfast, we headed off to explore the Naval Dockyard, which was the primary reason for our stop in Portsmouth, with a short detour to pick up train tickets for later journeys at the local railway station.  The railway station was a zoo, with people everywhere....what we didn't realize is that the Isle of Wight Music Festival, the last of the season, and the biggest in England, is on this weekend, so 50,000 people are trying to get to the Isle of Wight today, and a lot of them were catching ferries right next door to Portsmouth Harbour railway station.  Thankfully we were not heading to the Isle of Wight.

We had visited the Naval Dockyard 2 years ago, but at that time the Mary Rose was not on display.  Mary Rose was King Henry VIII's flagship at the battle of The Solent in 1545, was sunk during the battle, raised from the seabed in 1972, and is now on display, although restoration work continues.  You cannot go on board the Mary Rose as one side of the ship was destroyed by the ravages of time, but it was still great to see it, 570 years after it sank.  The associated museum has lots of artifacts recovered from the ship, which have provided a unique insight into life on a 16th century warship.

                                                                The Mary Rose

In contrast, you are able to explore all decks of HMS Victory, launched in 1765, and which was Lord Nelson's flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, and has been fully restored.

                                                              HMS Victory 

It took 6,000 trees to build Victory, but the ceiling height below decks still required us to bend over, even Marlene. 

                                                     HMS Victory - Gun Deck

We decided to skip HMS Warrior in favour of doing the harbour tour.  HMS Warrior was the first iron-clad warship, built in the 1860s, and she never fired a shot in battle.

                                                                HMS Warrior

The harbour tour was very interesting, with the commentator providing much information about the various ships in harbour and places of interest.  There was probably $10 Billion of modern navy vessels moored in the dockyard today....imagine what other uses all that money could have been put to.

After a little late afternoon downtime we walked down the Millennium Promenade beyond South Parade Pier before returning to The Dolphin pub for dinner.  The Dolphin, built in 1716, is Portsmouth's oldest pub, and we all enjoyed our dinner - bangers & mash, chicken curry, and chick pea and sweet potato tagine.

We ended the day at just under 19,000 steps, which Marlene called a good first day.  I called it tired and sore feet.  Hopefully we will all sleep well, as tomorrow we take two trains and a ferry to get to Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands.