An escape to the south coast COMPLETE About This Page:

[chezp]

An escape to the south coast

Dates: Friday 30 January – Sunday 1 February
Adventurers: Me, Cheryl (36) and DH Mark (43)
Resort: Holiday Inn, Portsmouth
Celebration: A fun weekend away

Pre-trip report:

For as many years as I can remember, Mark’s always wanted to visit Portsmouth and, sadly, for as many years as I can remember, we’ve never actually got around to visiting the city. Nothing against it, it’s just other plans always seem to crop up – many of them involving Disney and exotic stops around the world!

We did get as far as a couple of vacations at home, when we went to visit Cornwall twice in 2007, but that was the exception for us, rather than the norm. To be honest, our explorations of our own country sadly usually only take us as far as London, although in truth, there is a heck of a lot to see there and we could probably keep going many more times and still find things we haven’t seen. It’s a bit like Disney in that respect.

Anyway, that’s our sad history with Portsmouth. It got even sadder, when we did put a date in the diary to visit last year – I seem to recall it was going to be in June sometime and we’d have a nice weekend away there. Those plans were going great, until the car went in for her service and needed something like £300 worth of work just a couple of weeks before we were due to head down there. We hadn’t yet booked anything and, with a bill like that landing in our lands, I couldn’t justify any longer.

Fast forward to Christmas 2008. We’d first agreed to just buy each other stocking fillers, as we agreed that our trip to the Grand Canyon that we took as part of our tour around the States would be our Christmas present to each other. Well, let’s just say one of us stuck to that pledge, while the other forgot clean about it (stand up Mark!) He told me that and, when I heard that, I knew I had to add something else into the little bits and pieces I’d bought him, so I went online and had a quick nose around the Holiday Inn site, as we’re loyalty members with them.

I found a great deal that was only valid until the end of January 2009, but would give us bed and breakfast, not something you usually get at the Holiday Inn (although of course free breakfast comes with a stay at the Express by Holiday Inn side of the business) for the reasonable price of just £54 for the night. I immediately booked one night for Saturday 31 January. I would’ve loved to have booked two, but there was no way I could, as I was due to start my public relations diploma in London on the Friday and I wouldn’t be home until late.

It’s strange how things change though. In mid January, I got an e-mail telling me that course had been cancelled and offering me the chance to enrol on another one in London. That one had different dates and it was starting a week earlier, meaning that I wouldn’t now be studying on that Friday. This meant we could head down on the Friday night after all.

We thought about this and decided to go for it, but when we did, I ran into problems. After having carefully checked (or so I thought! ) that I could book it, because the previous offer that I’d taken advantage of was running out on 23 January, I thought I’d be fine. I logged on the next day and found the offer no longer applied to our weekend and they wanted £78 for the Friday night with no breakfast. I couldn’t believe it.

Mark did no more than phone the hotel directly and explain if we could get the other deal, then we’d be down for two nights. Otherwise, we’d stick with just the one. Perhaps unsurprisingly in the current economic climate, they agreed to give us the cheap deal for the Friday night.

So what do we plan on seeing and doing while we’re down there? There are quite a few things. Mark really wants to go to the Royal Navy submarine museum in nearby Gosport and the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, with the Tudor warship Mary Rose and Nelson’s flagship HMS Victory, is a must, as is the new Spinnaker Tower, which I’ve heard offers some stunning views of the city. And that’s really about it as far as the plans go.

Next: this traffic is painful!

[greentie]

I haven't been on a touristy visit to Portsmouth in years and years - looking forward to reading more about it!

[CastleWishes]

Leave it to one party to always "change the rules" when it comes to gifts lol.
It's great that you are finally making the trip!
I can't wait to read more about it!

[shellybelly72]

cant wait to read all aout it

[Colexis Mom]

Great start!! Now how many trip reports are you gonna have going at once??

[chezp]

Originally Posted by Colexis Mom

Great start!! Now how many trip reports are you gonna have going at once??

Only the two, as the Liverpool one is done and dusted with the one installment!

[chezp]

Friday 30 January: this traffic is painful!

We always knew that we would be leaving in the evening and that would mean tackling the M25 motorway around London in the rush hour, otherwise known as the biggest car park in Europe. It was either a case of leaving early or leaving a bit later and when Mark wasn’t home early, I knew it was going to be the latter option.

We headed out about 7pm and did fine on the M25, it was a few miles after we left that that we ran into problems, with lots of tail lights coming on bright red, never a good sign. We diverted off once and then found that the tail lights were still just as bad, although we had easily covered about three miles much quicker than if we’d stayed on the main road. We decided to turn off in about a mile, but getting that far took us about 15 minutes, as we crawled painfully along. We were delighted when we finally reached our junction and our trusty sat nav told us we could turn off.

The diversion we took brought us out about 20 miles further down the road and fortunately, when we rejoined, it was all clear again. Then it was plain sailing, although by then, we were running about half an hour later than we’d planned. We finally arrived in Portsmouth just after 9pm and the immediate impression I got was that it was a city that’s got great road links with its own motorway running right into the city, although you could also see from some of the housing as we drove round that it wasn’t the most affluent city.

We found our way through the city centre, seeing some sights on the way in the shape of some of the women out for the night and quickly found the hotel. We checked in and headed up to the room. There were some smoking rooms on this floor and you could smell it outside in the hallway, but fortunately not in our room, which was a reasonable size and nicely laid out – I loved the touch with the mirrors looking like portholes, reflecting Portsmouth’s naval history.



I thought this piece of art, incorporating Nice biscuits, an institution over here, was fascinating!


It’s an older hotel and you can tell that as you walk around that and it doesn’t have the modcons that you’d expect from newer hotels, but having said that, it’s still a very nice place and, from what I could see from our room, the swimming pool and health club looked lovely. Maybe I’ll get a chance to check that out while we’re here…


The swimming pool, as viewed from our room

We were both hungry, so it was straight down to the restaurant and we ended up sharing the £20 three course set menu, with me having the starter of the twice baked cheese soufflé with tomato chutney, which was absolutely wonderful. It was very filling and there’s no way I can imagine anyone eating another two courses after polishing this off! Mark went for the gammon, egg and chips and I heard no complaints from his side of the table.

We then shared dessert, a fruit salad with mango sorbet, low fat yoghurt and kiwi puree, again very nice and all complimented by a bottle of rose wine that we shared between us. The whole thing came to £42, including service, which was excellent value, as that included a bottle of wine.

By the time we got to dessert, we were the only ones left in the restaurant, as by then it was 10.15pm. It was a nice feeling to be there alone and have some great service from the staff, albeit probably because they wanted to clear us out, so they could close down.

Hotel restaurant:

Appetiser 9½ N/A
Main course N/A 8
Dessert 8½ 7
Service 8½ 9
Atmosphere 9 10

Average score: 8.69

Then it was back to the room and off to bed.

The weather today was around the low 30’s, but dry.
The best thing today was dinner at the hotel.
The worst thing today was the traffic jams on the way down.
Today we tried the Holiday Inn at Portsmouth.
And the result was it’s a nice hotel.

Next: seeing a national treasure

[Colexis Mom]

Sorry about the detour!! It looks like a nice room!! Glad you had a great dinner too!!

[greentie]

Ah the wonders of the M25...

Your hotel room looked nice and fresh and bright and the meal sounded lovely although you definitely did the right thing by sharing it - there's no way I'd have managed all that food on my own!

[Kenny]

This sounds like an interesting trip! I may have to file it away for a visit if we ever get to England.

[chezp]

Saturday 31 January – part one: seeing a national treasure

Isn’t it always the way that when you’re away and you can sleep in, you never do. Yes, we were both awake not long after 6am, which was not the start to our Saturday that we wanted. We took our time getting ready to go out and, as we did, we were treated to a lovely sunrise.






We headed down to enjoy breakfast and there was a great spread down there, with cereals, pastries, fruit, juices and a number of hot items, including eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, bacons, sausages and hash browns. It turned out to be an even better deal, as the signs told us that had we not got a bed and breakfast offer, then we would’ve had to pay £12.50 each to enjoy this buffet!

Once we were finished, we headed out and boy, it was cold out, so cold that I headed back to the room to go and get my boots, as my ankles were freezing in my tennis shoes! Mark would also point out that I was wearing ankle socks, which didn’t help and that was true, I will admit.

Finally we were off and we still had time to kill, as the Dockyard didn’t open until 10am, so we headed first to the coastline just along from our hotel, which is home to the Hovercraft that runs over to the Isle of Wight. As I went to get out of the car, I practically got blown away by the wind and the door slammed back shut again. At that moment, I really did think that getting out was a bad plan, but I managed it to get some photos of the bay and the beach and, as I did, Mark spotted one of the hovercraft on its way back to its base, so we waited to see that come ashore. It was certainly getting blown around no end out there!


Clarence Pier

The seafront road

Nelson’s most famous phrase

Mark exploring the beach

The view over to Gosport across the estuary






Here comes the hovercraft!

From there, we drove into the historic waterfront area of Portsmouth, which was lovely, seeing the cathedral on the way.







The Spinnaker Tower


The old...

... and the new

Then it was into Portsmouth and we quickly found the Dockyard car park and parked up. We wandered down towards the entrance and took some photos of the area.





Mark tries out his giant egg whisk!

And another silly photo op!

On the wall outside the Dockyard

HMS Warrior, dating from 1860

The Spinnaker Tower

And the two together

We had a look around the visitor information centre nearby, as at least it was indoors and not cold in there. Even after finishing there, we still had a 10 minute wait before the Dockyard opened, but we passed the time chatting to the staff member at the entrance. Finally, we were allowed in and got our tickets, which would give us access to all the attractions in the Dockyard, along with the Spinnaker Tower.




We were booked into the 10.30 tour to see HMS Victory, so didn’t have much time to do much before that, but we did manage to look around the apprentice exhibition, which explained the role of apprentices in the dockyard and the different roles that they took on. What stuck in my mind was the fact that it took an apprentice five years to learn all the different types of painting.






We finished up in there and headed for HMS Victory, which was the flagship of Lord Nelson. It’s a ship that nearly everyone in the UK knows the name of and for good reason. Lord Nelson is generally regarded as the Royal Navy’s most important leader in its history and that was reinforced by the fact that we were joined during the tour by a serving member of the Royal Navy. It was fascinating to hear him explain how respected Lord Nelson is and how everyone who enters the Navy comes here to learn about him.

Lord Nelson is best remembered for the Battle of Trafalgar during the Napoleonic wars in the early 19th century, when his unique tactics of literally cutting the Spanish and French fleets in two by the British ships succeeded and the entire fleet of the two countries ended up surrendering. Although 450 men died on the Victory, on the French and Spanish sides, something like 5,000 died and 3,000 were wounded. After that, the whole war changed and the British were very much seen as the masters of the sea for many years following that decisive battle.

On each Trafalgar Day in 21 October, the anniversary of the battle, the Royal Navy come to the Victory to remember the battle and their greatest leader.











Unfortunately, no photos were allowed inside the Victory, mainly due to safety concerns and I can partially understand that, as there are lot of eyelets in the floor as you move around the boat and I can imagine that they’ve had problems in the past with people tripping over them while they tried to take photos. I respected that rule, although I did notice others didn’t.

The first thing they showed us was Nelson’s living quarters, which was divided into three parts, a dining area, living area and sleeping area. Here is where I really wished I could’ve taken photos, as the long table laid out with fine glassware and crockery on it was something to see. The whole thing really did make me think of the captain’s quarters that you see in the Hollywood blockbusters. It was a complete contrast to everything else we saw and, even here, you could push everything out of the way, so that this area could be used in battle if needed.

Our tour took us through a variety of decks after that. On the top deck, the sound of the wind whistling through the rigging above us was quite something to behold. I never realised it would be so noisy. : Below deck, we got to see the cannons, although most of them are now much lighter replicas, as the boat couldn’t hold the weight of all the original cannons now it’s in dry dock. We learnt that the cannons, when fired, would recoil about three or four feet. It took about seven crew to each cannon and they could re-load them in 90 seconds. We also learnt that the cannons had a devastating effect at close quarters of less than a mile away and could easily cut through anything.

At the bottom level, we were shown the main hold and the area where they kept the gunpowder for the cannons. Other interesting areas including the workshops, which were better equipped than some workshops today, and the surgery area. Oh my goodness, some of those implements – no thank you! :

It was a fascinating hour long tour, with one of the final stops being the spot where Nelson died. He was shot by a French sniper at the Battle of Trafalgar and then died three and a half hours later, after learning that the battle had been won. The area where he died is still regarded by the Navy as a shrine and I felt very privileged to see this spot. In fact, I felt very privileged to have seen this ship. It really is a national treasure and well worth seeing.

Next: I can’t believe this survived 500 years!

[shellybelly72]

Great photos! Thanks for the update!

[Kenny]

Thanks for the tour of the Victory! That was very interesting, indeed!

[Colexis Mom]

Great pictures!! The ship tour sounds fascinating!!

[DrDolphin]

What an interesting tour - I wish you'd been able to take photos as well!!