Travels in the United Kingdom 1997
Portsmouth
Since it took about 2 hours to drive south to Portsmouth, we were ready for lunch. See, I wasn't allowed to have fish and chips from some inland chippie, so I had to wait until we got to the coast. Marcus went to university in Portsmouth, but I think I remember my way around Davis much better than he remembers Portsmouth!
It was warm, overcast and REALLY muggy, so I was miserable most of the day. I'd much rather have 115 degrees Fahrenheit than the humidity there! But even though it was overcast, we did have some nice views. This is Southsea Castle in the background, with some of the southern coast of England showing, too...
Of course I'm never going to pass up a castle if I can help it, even though this one has been used more as a military fort to protect the coastline over the years...
...and we got really lucky, since we happened to come to Portsmouth on the last day of the Victorian weekend at the castle! We stayed there for quite awhile watching their demonstrations in costume...
Many LOUD booms with the gunners' demonstrations...
...but I think I liked the drummers better. They were quite good, and I think it takes a lot of practice to be able to hold the sticks up to your nose with your elbows stuck out horizontally between rolls!
...and here is the Drum Major performing on the bugle for us. He was quite good, too, and they were all full of information to explain why they were doing what they did...
...This is the regiment lined up for their entrance to the final ceremony where their drums were going to be presented to Queen Victoria. If you can see the woman in black at the side, that was Queen Victoria...
.Of course we also had to wander around the castle and see what we could see. There are tunnels that are rumored to go all the way under the water out to the Isle of Wight, but that's just a rumor. The tunnels make a big loop back to the castle...at least the tunnels open to the public!
After a long, long walk in the muggy heat, which made me awfully crabby since I just couldn't cool off no matter what I did, we made it over to the Royal Navy Shipyards, where they have a lot of historical ships as well as tours to see modern military ships out in the harbor...
But by the time we got in, we just barely made the last guided tour of the HMS Victory, so we had to bother the staff after closing to get our pictures taken for our season tickets. The season tickets allow us to see all the attractions as many times as we want within the next two years, and we can also give our friends discounts when we come back with them. We knew we'd be coming back, so it was cheaper to get the season ticket...
This is the HMS Victory, and it looked to me like it was close to being done with its restoration. The Victory was Admiral Nelson's ship in the Battle of Trafalgar, and they have a plaque on the deck where Nelson fell (but he died in sickbay later)...
We caught a couple shops right as they were closing, so I got a few souvenirs, including an authentic rum ration cup, since all sailors in the Royal Navy were ordered a certain measure of rum daily, since they discovered it kept them healthier than only drinking water on board...
Marcus had been showing me around the various places where he lived during school, and I had seen this pub. I thought it was cool, since it had that one tower at the corner, along with the well-preserved (or restored) timbers. After I pointed this one out, we began to see a bunch of others designed the same way around town, so we suspect it was a local phenomenon, since we haven't seen any quite like them anywhere else in our travels...
Since we had parked back along by the castle, we had a little fun with Marcus' new teeny-tiny camera (the Canon IXUS/ELPH) and it's fill-in flash with longer exposure for some ambient lighting. Well, it kind of worked...? It's a nice sunset anyway...
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