OK, so it wasn’t quite as idyllic as last year (see this post) because the weather wasn’t fine and sunny, but nevertheless we had a very good time. Started off with a night in the Queens Hotel, Southsea, because we wanted to revisit a lovely walk through old Portsmouth we did a few years ago (see this post). A long but very interesting walk as far as Gunwharf Quays. Next day, took the ferry to Fishbourne. Same little apartment as last year. This time, we walked round Bonchurch, played mini-golf again, had a lovely walk up on Ventnor Down, had a very wet day in Ryde and then a very good tour of Farringford, Tennyson’s home. Another wettish day pottering round shops and seeing – or not seeing – some lions and tigers. The changeable weather gave some very striking cloudscapes…
The Queens Hotel seemed very much the same as when we visited back in 2016. Not quite such a fancy room this time, but we still had a good sea view. It is a beautiful old building, and it was good to see it apparently thriving. Obviously it is not perfect, but if you like grand old hotels, Battleaxe would recommend.
There is much to see in Portsmouth Harbour and the Solent. On the first day we saw one of the UK’s two aircraft carriers, the Queen Elizabeth, setting out on an exercise to test its systems etc. All those two ships seem to do is set out, break down, return to harbour for repairs and set out again…. and no, it is not sailing across the grass…
First, we walked in the other direction as far as Southsea Pier, which is now re-opened and was very busy. Excellent. On an even earlier visit we stayed in another grand old Hotel, the Royal Beach, right opposite the Pier. (Here’s the post – Southsea comes right at the end.) This time we saw the hotel had closed down, and was waiting to be turned into apartments. As readers will know, Battleaxe loves grand old hotels, and really, we need to use them or lose them… here is the poor old hotel, looking very sad. To see it in its prime, look at the earlier post.
Southsea is actually very pleasant – loads of green space, a very interesting seafront and very pretty gardens up towards the Pier.
So, the next day we did our long walk through old Portsmouth to Gunwharf Quays. Much the same as last time except much money is clearly being invested in improvements to the flood defences, which meant new walkways. Quite by accident, we found ourselves following Nelson’s Last Walk– a route through a tunnel from a fort and across a bridge, which would have led him to a barge to take him to the Victory. As before, we made a welcome stop at a pub on Spice Island.
We have never visited Gunwharf Quays – not dissimilar to our own local Sovereign Harbour in Eastbourne, except many, many more shopping Outlets. You name the shop, there was an outlet there… As we had a long walk back, I virtuously confined myself to visiting only one, Weird Fish, where I got a bargain fleece. Yet again, we didin’t go up the Spinnaker Tower – it didn’t look that interesting.
That same afternoon we took the ferry across to Fishbourne, and drove over to Ventnor. Same apartment as before – I won’t go into detail about it or Ventnor, you can read last year’s post. However, as the weather was dodgy we probably spent more time in the apartment. It is on the ground floor, with slatted wooden blinds to keep prying eyes out. I found it a bit closed in…
We had a lovely walk over to Bonchurch, just down the coast. Walked there by the sea-side path. It is apparently a haunt of the rare Glanville Fritillary butterfly, who of course were not out and about in September, but the planting had attracted loads of other butterflies – Philosopher took this lovely pic.
Then we had to puff and pant up into the village, which is full of grand, and not so grand stone Victorian homes set in dense greenery. There are two old churches set in romantic old graveyards. The oldest is Saxon/Norman, and the newer one contains the tomb of Swinburne the poet.
The ferny, craggy romantic scenery of Bonchurch, and indeed the whole Ventnor area, were a positive magnet for famous Victorians who either visited for holidays or lived there. Last year I mentioned Elgar, who honeymooned in a house a few yards from ours, further down Alexandra Gardens. This year, we tried to track down lots more – Dickens, Swinburne, Turgenev, Karl Marx, Gandhi, Winston Churchill as a boy, Lord Macaulay and even Haile Selassie. Here is a list.
Here is Philosopher photographing Marx’s plaque.
However, our favourite was Henry de Vere Stackpoole, who lived in Bonchurch, and even gave the village its pond. Who he, you may say – a now forgotten novelist. Have downloaded a couple of his to try.
We went for a lovely walk up on Ventnor Down, which is only accessible via a very narrow and scary lane. It was so quiet – and you could see for absolute miles, right across the island, across the Solent to Portsmouth and beyond. Must have been at least 25 miles… Philosopher took a photo with his zoomy camera. You can see the Spinnaker Tower, and the white building beyond on the left is some sort of naval establishment on the hill behind Portsmouth – and then there are more hills beyond that.
Had one exceptionally wet day. We tried to go to Ryde. At least we got our usual hot chocolate in the wonderful Chocolate Apothecary shop – as ever, I had chilli hot chocolate. But it was just too wet to walk around. In the afternoon we had booked to go on a tour of Farringford in Freshwater, Tennyson’s house. Sadly, it was far too wet to walk round the lovely gardens, but the house tour was very interesting indeed. The house has been painstakingly and obviously expensively restored to how it was in Tennyson’s time. Unfortunately you couldn’t take photos in the house, here is one of my photos of the exterior, and one of the interior off the internet. Battleaxe would recommend.
Another day was wettish, not as bad though. We went for a mosey round the shops in Shanklin. Not the twee tourist bit, full of thatched tea rooms etc., but the distinctly run-down shops on the parade. Honestly, not so much run-down Britain as third world… they had some amazing places selling very strange combinations of goods. Think fancy-dress outfits, model railways and vinyl. Or, better still, a pet shop combined with second-hand clothes, Hells Angel biker kit plus old DVDs… Having said that, there were some fantastic browsing places – including one junk/antiques/nick-nacks place, I think called the Squirrels Den, and a great fossil shop, as well as a good coffee shop. Bought some bizarre, weird and wonderful objects…
Then we drove over to the Wildheart Animal Sanctuary outside Sandown. Probably a mistake, since the wet weather meant most of the animals stayed, sensibly, in their lairs. They specialise in rescuing animals from circuses etc. We saw some lovely lions and tigers, including these lions – photo from the internet – it was too wet to fiddle with the phone camera. The animals all had spacious quarters, and looked very healthy.
However, it was expensive for what you got, and I think the cafe had the most infuriating menu ever. The small print said the food was 100% plant-based, and indeed it was – but carefully disguised as ordinary food, so we didn’t realise what we were getting. Look, don’t get me wrong, Battleaxe has nothing against vegan food, in fact much of it is very tasty, but why on earth do you have to pretend? Here is the menu, for you to see. I had a ‘cheese’ and piccalilli sandwich and it was disgusting. Horrible vegan cheese, with a vaguely yukky aftertaste, no butter, and violently acidic pickle. Philosopher did even worse, with a flabby ersatz ‘chick’n’ and bacon sandwich. Thank God we didn’t have the burgers, or a sausage sandwich…
Finally, one odd thing… we trailed this van all the way from Shanklin to the end of Alexandra Gardens in Ventnor, where it turned off and we went home. It comes from Goat Ledge in St Leonards. What on earth were they up to?
