Isle of Wight

After another night at June’s we said our farewells and moved on to Portsmouth for one night and then caught the ferry over to the Isle of Wight.  The ferry journey in itself was an adventure neither David nor myself had been on a car ferry other than the one to Raymond Island from Paynesville, which is a very different experience, any way we survived it and arrived in Fishbourne on the Isle of Wight after 40 minutes.    Once again on dry land, our trusty sat-nav took us down the very narrow lanes past some beautiful scenery on our way to our    B & B in Shanklin.  What we didn’t know is that all roads on the IOW are very narrow and quite busy.   The Shanklin Old Village is made up mainly of thatched buildings, all beautiful to wonder through. 

Abbey on the Isle of Wight

View of Esplanade from clifftop walk

Fisherman's Cottage, beautiful haddock & chips.

The Crab Hotel Shanklin

Tea room in Shanklin

Village Inn Shanklin

One day 2 (IOW) of our stay we visited Queen Victoria’s home on the IOW Osborne House, the photos will speak for themselves.

Osborne House

Gardens

Osborne House

Beach at Osborne House

Walled Gardens

Day 3 (IOW) we went to the far side of the Island, this side of the island is not as densely populated with only about 10% of the island population living west of the main town of Newmarket.  Roads were still very narrow but not as busy so the day was quite relaxing; we visited the needles and had lunch in the town of Yarmouth, which was followed by an ice cream on the pier.

The Neddles

Hanging baskets outside a pub in Yarmouth

Day 4 (IOW) the ferry adventure again, tis time not a bad it was a smaller ferry. 

Our IOW adventure was followed by 2 days in Southampton, we caught up with a very good friend for a beautiful dinner (thank you Peter), and a bit too much to drink.  The following day we just had a wonder around getting our bearings and doing a bit of shopping (it was meant to be shopping for me, but we came out of M&S with a couple of shirts for David and nothing for me).  That evening we did a walking tour of the Old Town, we were the only ones on the tour so was very informative.

Wine Vaults in Southampton

Part of the City Walls

Tudor House