★ Week One Itinerary:
- Auckland, New Zealand
- Portsmouth, England
- Leicester, England
- Cambridge, England
Auckland, New Zealand
Auckland ✈ Singapore ✈ London
We made it!
After…
25 hours flying.
4 hours busing.
11 hours waiting.
We finally made it to Portsmouth, UK; the first place on our Europa travel.
Portsmouth, England
London 🚌 Portsmouth
Portsmouth, England | July 27th – August 1st.
From Auckland to Portsmouth travel was actually a breeze. The flights ran on time, there were no virus testing qualms at the airports, the bus stopped in London City allowing us to walk to see my favourite bridge (Albert bridge) and I even managed to sleep on all three legs of the journey. Success I’d say!
Portsmouth is a city with a rich maritime heritage, historic dockyard and Victorian style architecture. It’s also a place we have both visited before and were now returning to for one lovely reason; Deborah. She very kindly housed, fed and entertained us while we toured Portsmouth and the surrounding region again. Thank you so much Deb!
For those not familiar with Portsmouth I’d recommend you visit the seaside walkway and take a stroll between the various piers. Maybe even consider your luck at the arcade games inside like we did (for several hours). 😛
From South Parade towards Clarence Pier you’ll pass memorials for the battle of Trafalgar, fallen naval soldiers during WW1, WW2 and D-day. We stopped and wandered through King Henry VIII’s Southsea Castle and the Round Tower on our way to Gunwharf Quays.
The Spinnaker Tower is located here and can be spied atop many areas within Portsmouth city, it’s sort of a landmark of the region (well I think at least). We later perused the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard which houses many HMS ships including the HMS Victory, HMS Warrior and the Tudor commissioned warship The Mary Rose which sank in 1545 off the coast.
But no day is complete in a seaside town without an ice cream obviously. 😉
The following day we hovercrafted; yes you read that correctly, we hovercrafted over to the Isle of Wight. What an island! As the largest island in England (excluding the mainland) and located on the other side of the Solent strait it provided a full 14 hours worth of adventure for us.
After exploring Ryde, we bused to Osborne House, through Cowes, lunched in Newport, continued our bus ride west past Carisbrooke Castle, Yarmouth Castle and out to the Needles with the multi coloured cliffs and sand. Trotted up to the Needles viewpoint near the old and new battery, then continued around the southern aspect of the island past the many beaches which were crowded with all English holiday goers. The eastern towns of Ventor and Shaklin amazed us with their fancy decor and incredible sea views (probably of France N.D said), before we passed the Brembridge Windmill and eventually stopped at the Wishing Well gin distillery for a tasting. The day rounded out with dinner in Ryde and a hovercraft back to the mainland. Beau-ti-ful!
I couldn’t go to Osborne House without explaining why this was the highlight of my day! For anyone who hasn’t spent more than 10 minutes with me and inadvertently had me bring up my love of the British Royal Family, then I’ll say it now, I love the royals, in particular the late Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert. So visiting Osborne House couldn’t have been higher on my wish list of activities. To save you a history lesson I’ll instead just include (many) pictures. 🙂 even N.D said he liked the tour around the grounds!
Our final day in Portsmouth saw us trot the Wayfarer and Hayling Billy Line walkways. Starting from Emsworth we trotted around the Chichester Harbour, past several mill ponds, castles and a fort before heading over to Hayling Island. We stopped for fish & chips at the beach then continued around the seaside back to Portsmouth.
Leicester, England
Portsmouth 🚂 Leicester
Leicester, England | August 1st – 5th.
From Portsmouth we trained to Leicester to visit N.Ds family. Amongst sightseeing the city centre with Richard, trotting Bradgate Park with Viv and spending time with Gran we also golfed… a lot!
Mini putt, driving range and a 9-hole course were all completed during our visit. Thank you for all your generosity with tour-guiding, accommodation and time – it was lovely.
Cambridge, England
Leicester 🚂 Cambridge
Cambridge, England | August 5th – 7th.
Cambridge was our final UK stop for the week. Neither of us had been here before and were kindly housed and entertained by N.Ds friend Colin and his partner Robyn. We had a blast!
Punting, exploring, eating, drinking and seeing all the popular sights Cambridge had to offer was great. These included; the various colleges of the University of Cambridge (there are 31 in total), Bridge of Sighs, Corpus Clock, the oldest Round Church, first ever bookshop, Castle Mound, Mathematical Bridge, Darwin’s House, Newtons Tree, Kings College fountain, Scott Polar Research Centre, Kettle Yard, Magdalene Bridge, St Johns Building (and lack of clock face) The Eagle pub and many, many gardens.
Gotta say though… the photos of N.D and I punting with smiles and sunshine don’t show the struggle I had lifting the pole or amount of sweat accumulated. 😛
TTFN – next stop Budapest, Hungary. 🙂
GC Chronicles 