We drove about 170 miles today. We had another beautiful day - in the mornings it's cloudy and foggy, but by noon the sun breaks through and It gets up in the high 70's for temps.
We took a ferry this morning after fighting rush hour traffic and getting confused in the town of Portsmouth where the ferry dock is. We couldn't follow the GPS very well and ended up at the wrong dock. (Reed - We originally planned to leave at 8 am this morning, but decided to leave at 7:30, just in case we encountered difficulties, which we did. 1. We got on the M25 freeway going the wrong way to start. 2. The rush hour traffic was really stop and go for the first 45 minutes. 3. Then we hit downtown Portsmouth and took a long time to finally find the car ferry to Fishborne on the Isle of Wight. They have a lot of roundabouts, which aren't too bad, if they have some size to them. But they have roundabouts that are just small painted circles on the pavement, with confusing arrows, and I couldn't seem to get any of those right. But we still made it in time). We eventually found the dock and got on the ferry to go to the Isle of Wight which is near the southeast tip of England. It's a pretty small island and again I had trouble interpreting the GPS, but we found the lighthouse. First we stopped for fish and chips at "The Buddle Inn". Reed said this was the best fish and chips he's had so far this trip. (Reed-this place was listed at #103 of restaurants on the isle of Wight, according to Trip Advisor, but I like them just fine. And the white chocolate cheesecake with ice cream I had for dessert was really good!).
After lunch we walked about 1/2 mile to the lighthouse. This lighthouse was built in 1838 and it was originally 30 feet taller, but so often the light was enshrouded in cloud and mist that it was not much use to ships at sea. So in 1932 engineers cut it down by 30 feet. It made it look less stately and pretty, but it did a better job of alerting the ships at sea. (Reed - that's the difference between an architect, who would have figured out how to shorten the lighthouse without making it ugly, and an engineer who is satisfied with a chop job, so long as it functions better)..
We took a ferry this morning after fighting rush hour traffic and getting confused in the town of Portsmouth where the ferry dock is. We couldn't follow the GPS very well and ended up at the wrong dock. (Reed - We originally planned to leave at 8 am this morning, but decided to leave at 7:30, just in case we encountered difficulties, which we did. 1. We got on the M25 freeway going the wrong way to start. 2. The rush hour traffic was really stop and go for the first 45 minutes. 3. Then we hit downtown Portsmouth and took a long time to finally find the car ferry to Fishborne on the Isle of Wight. They have a lot of roundabouts, which aren't too bad, if they have some size to them. But they have roundabouts that are just small painted circles on the pavement, with confusing arrows, and I couldn't seem to get any of those right. But we still made it in time). We eventually found the dock and got on the ferry to go to the Isle of Wight which is near the southeast tip of England. It's a pretty small island and again I had trouble interpreting the GPS, but we found the lighthouse. First we stopped for fish and chips at "The Buddle Inn". Reed said this was the best fish and chips he's had so far this trip. (Reed-this place was listed at #103 of restaurants on the isle of Wight, according to Trip Advisor, but I like them just fine. And the white chocolate cheesecake with ice cream I had for dessert was really good!).
After lunch we walked about 1/2 mile to the lighthouse. This lighthouse was built in 1838 and it was originally 30 feet taller, but so often the light was enshrouded in cloud and mist that it was not much use to ships at sea. So in 1932 engineers cut it down by 30 feet. It made it look less stately and pretty, but it did a better job of alerting the ships at sea. (Reed - that's the difference between an architect, who would have figured out how to shorten the lighthouse without making it ugly, and an engineer who is satisfied with a chop job, so long as it functions better)..
We received a very interesting tour and historical background of the lighthouse from the caretakers. I climbed the 94 steps to the top and took pictures inside and out. It didn't feel like I climbed all those steps because the tour guide stopped about every 30 steps to explain some facts about the light. The building right next to the light on its left is the fog horn tower.
After leaving the lighthouse, we drove to Carisbrooke Castle on the isle. This is a pre-Norman conquest (1100) castle with a varied history - it has been a home, a military fortress and a prison. This castle is part of the English Heritage foundation and is therefore protected and maintained for the public.
We didn't stay too long at Carisbrooke as we had one more sight to see before it got too late. We drove about 30 minutes to Osborne House. This is a very large estate and gardens built for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert between 1845 - 1851. The queen and prince spent many a summer here raising their nine children. Prince Albert built the Swiss cottage especially for the children. The grounds and gardens are spectacular. The trees look like they are centuries old. |
We were unable to tour the inside of the buildings as we got there after 5 p.m. But we enjoyed walking around the grounds. It was a beautiful place! We drove back to catch the ferry. We missed the 6 p.m. ferry so we just waited for the 7 p.m. crossing. However, this made us a little later in getting back to the B&B. It was a 90 minute drive after the ferry trip and by this time it is quite dark. We get within a few blocks of our B&B and run into night-time road construction. Our road is completely closed for overnight work so we have to take a detour. Mind you, this detour is NOT marked with signs, it is very dark, we don't know the roads, and the construction worker gives us some quick directions. The directions he gave turned out to be correct, but we couldn't tell until we actually got on the other side of the road block. The roads he had us take were VERY narrow - so narrow that we had to put the car in the shrubs to allow others to come the other way (there were lots of cars taking this detour - 3 cars were following us as if we knew where we were going!) (Reed here - the detour seemed like it was 3-4 miles. It was so narrow that I was certain we would scrape car sides, and I heard the bushes scrape the care several times. I would call it: "The far journey - there and back again." Or "You can't get there from here."). At any rate, we came out on the other side of the B&B just 200 feet from our parking lot and the workers would not let us go to the lot. We had to find a place to park on the street along with 100 other cars. We were not happy about this, but what can you do? We finally got back to our room and I almost fell asleep immediately. We'll just have to get back before 9 p.m. in the future! |