Portsmouth has been on our list to visit ever since owning a motorhome! Unfortunately however, Portsmouth doesn’t seem to have too many campsites to choose from that close to the historic dockyards, and the ones that we could find were extortionate. We also knew that it’d be a full day in a place not suitable for doggies so our desire to visit Portsmouth has been on the backburner, until a chance look on Air B n B discovered we had plenty of options to consider using that route.
A couple of hours later and we’d discovered some ridiculously cheap train tickets all the way from Norfolk to Portsmouth and back at £15 each return! Suddenly we felt inspired, and the next thing we knew we’d booked ourselves a little rail adventure.
It took 4 hours on the train – we traveled from Diss to London Liverpool street, then walked from Liverpool street to Waterloo, where we picked up the train to Portsmouth. We cover a fair few miles week to week so we found travelling by train really relaxing – plus we could have a beer and a picnic whilst en route.
We arrived in Portsmouth in the beautiful sunshine, and checked in to our Air BnB – Gill’s house. We had the use of the upstairs – perfect for what we needed as we were planning on being out all day. She very kindly cooked a full english for us both days so we felt at £52 pn it was excellent value. Her apartment had a sea view and was 15 minute walk to the main attractions.
Friday afternoon we enjoyed a visit up the Spinnaker Tower, the largest tower outside of London. The views were wonderful, and the glass floor was terrifying but exciting! We had a little bit of a wander round grabbing a few pints here and there, before a gorgeous fish and chip supper in The Still and West, which had a sea view.
Saturday dawned cold and snowy, but it didn’t stop us, we had our breakfast and were queuing at the Historic Dockyards by 09:50. Doors opened at 10:00 and there was quite a queue! We pre booked our tickets online, which saved some money, but the tickets are valid for a whole year- handy if you’re local. As we are not local, we set ourselves a challenge to see everything in one day. Battleplan drawn, as soon as those gates to the dockyard opened, we hot footed it to The “Brand New in the last year or so” Mary Rose exhibition.
Let me say this: this exhibition was truly one of the greatest we’ve been to in the UK and worthy of the ticket price alone. How they’ve displayed the wreck of the Mary Rose is just marvellous – and all the Tudor artefacts that were found on board were just fascinating and in remarkable condition due to being buried in sand silt for 400 years. We spent 2 hours in there but easily could have spent the whole day in there alone.
Our next stop was HMS Victory – Lord Nelson’s beloved ship. Again, we had a fascinating visit – Keith discovered he would be no good at sea at 6 foot 4 – he spent the entirety crouched almost in half!
After the Victory we nipped on the waterbus to take us to HMS Alliance – the submarine, where we enjoyed a fascinating tour lead by retired sub-mariners.
We then picked up a 45 min harbour cruise which showed us the current Naval ships, including the brand new one – which are so so ugly but so so big – especially in comparison to the historical ones.
We nipped onto HMS Warrior, which again was beautiful, before nipping round the Naval museum.
By 5pm, we were done in! But delighted to have had such a cram packed day. We had successfully seen everything that we hoped to, so celebrated with a Mary Rose g&t in the Old Customs house before moving to the historical Bridge Tavern – which was a bit rowdy! We ended up back at the Still and West for our dinner again – and managed to bag the best seat in there, overlooking the Solent so we spent a great evening watching the Brittany Ferries and Isle of Wight ferries come backwards and forwards.
As you can see, we had a super mini break and we would highly recommend a trip to the Historic Dockyards – they really were outstanding. Well done Portsmouth Tourist board and the Royal Navy for producing a museum and historical attraction that we really can be proud of.
Until Next Time
Lx
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Close to my home, so I used to go fairly regularly. Glad they’ve done something with the Mary Rose; always thought it was a bit of an embarrassment. Found the Warrier interesting. And used to take leisure and tourism students down to Action Stations as part of the marketing unit – they used to love that. Don’t suppose you got into Gun Wharf Quays? To shattered from the sounds of it.
We had a drink at Gun Wharf Quays and the shopping precinct there -I managed to drag Keith in to one shop for approximately 2 mins haha! Lots of restaurants and bars there but we liked the Still and West as it wasn’t a chain
They’ve really exhibited the MR wonderfully. We liked the Warrier too- our air b n b host used to volunteer guide on it as well so got lots of info from her over breakfast
You’ve sold it to me, I’m putting the dockyards on my must see list – might take the grandson with me during the summer when I get back.
You must- you’ll love it!