Last week, I finally managed to get away on holiday, for the first time in over 2 years! This was my post-running events reward to myself, and it was badly needed. A solo trip this time (group holidays planned for next year), and I managed to pack quite a bit in, as is my usual way with these things.
I chose
Portsmouth as my base, and managed to cram quite a lot in, spending three days there and three days on trips to surrounding places. This worked pretty well, although I could've easily filled another week. Just in Portsmouth itself, there was a
D-Day museum,
aquarium and
Charles Dickens' birthplace I could've visited if I'd had more time, and other day trips could've taken me back to the Isle of Wight, to Winchester, Bournemouth or Chichester. But I was selective, and chose the highlights I really wanted to visit.
This wasn't a holiday entirely free freom covid restrictions - a few visits needed to be booked in advance, and there was the usual constantly thinking about hands/face/space - but it was relaxed enough to feel like a normal holiday. As a curious observation more than anything else, I noticed mask-wearing on public transport was around 5%, whereas mask-wearing around historic attractions was more like 95%.
I'd chosen a mix of indoor and outdoor activities, but the weather was very kind for October (often cloudy, occasionally drizzly, but overall dry, mild and frequently sunny for the time of year). I was able to enjoy the weather quite a bit, as my holiday wasn't all manic. There were plenty of gentle walks and time sat, enjoying the sunshine. On my "Portsmouth days", once I'd finished sightseeing for the day, I took myself down to the beach and went for a swim in the sea. From this I learned two things:
1) Shingle beaches are good if all you want to do is swim, as you don't have the problem of wet sand sticking to you afterwards.
2) Sea swimming in October is totally doable. The sea has yet to cool down, and the difference between the water and air temperature is probably about the smallest it gets, which makes getting in and out less painful!
On the theme of relaxation, my non-Portsmouth days meant I had plenty of time to sit back and read my book on various trains. Evenings, on the other hand, don't really work when you're holidaying on your own. I get self-conscious dining out alone. Although I did treat myself to a nice restaurant one day, most of the time I was grabbing dinner on the pier, at a bar or something to eat on the train. And there wasn't much to do with the rest of the evening, once I'd eaten. This was fine though - I got into a pattern of early to bed (10pm or thereabouts), early to rise (7ish), which allowed me to make the most of the dwindling daylight hours and the times the attractions I wanted to visit were open.
My hotel was good too, comfortable and with a lot of the old-fashioned charm which is missing from soulless modern chain hotels. The staff were cheery, the room was comfy and the breakfast was great (I worked my way through all the cooked options over the week). I quickly figured out a half hour walking route to Fratton (nearest station) and another, more scenic half hour walk along the seafront to the old town. Being just across the road from the beach was also a bonus. :o)
Saturday 9th October - Mostly a travel day, with a 4 1/2 hour train journey after doing my usual parkrun in Sheffield in the morning. I arrived at Portsmouth just as the sun was setting, checked into my hotel and went out and got fish & chips.
Sunday 10th October - I like to explore my surroundings on the first day of a holiday, so this was a day for exploring Portsmouth.
Portchester Castle and the
Spinnaker Tower were on my list of things to do today. The castle is seriously old - a mix of Roman and Norman - and I spent a while there. Spinnaker Tower, on the other hand, took about 15 minutes, since all you're doing is going up to look out the windows. It's impressive (and one of those windows is in the floor, looking straight down!), but felt expensive for what it was.
I wasn't planning to visit them, but happened to walk past
Portsmouth Cathedral and
Southsea Castle, so figured I might as well and had a quick look around inside both. I had a late lunch at the café in the castle courtyard. I walked all along the seafront and had a swim in the sea, before finishing the day watching a spectacular sunset from a bar on the seafront (as well as spending a ridiculous 4 hours waiting in the online queue for
Percy Pud, but let's not talk about that).
Monday 11th October - My first day trip beyond Portsmouth. I took the
hovercraft (which was awesome, if only for the novelty factor) across to the Isle of Wight (cue jokes about having a "ticket to Ryde"), then a bus to
Osborne House, on which I got chatting to an American family who'd joined me at the front of the top deck so their son could "drive" the bus - good to see some things are universal!
It was a lovely day (my photos don't really do it justice) and Osborne was resplendent in the sunshine. I can see why Victoria loved it so, especially when I took the walk the royals would've taken down to their private beach (I paddled). It feels very much like a family retreat rather than a palace, albeit on a scale you or I could never afford. I looked around inside the house and fully explored the grounds (including a Swiss Cottage designed by Prince Albert for his kids, and an underground ice store) before heading back to Ryde. There I wandered along the beach and the pier for a bit before taking the hovercraft back.
It was another impressive sunset so, rather than go straight back to my hotel, I walked over to the city centre. I ate out there and saw the Spinnaker Tower lit up at night (which I'd also wanted to do, having seen it from a distance the day before), before heading back.
Tuesday 12th October - My second day trip, a train journed to Arundel this time. The highlight was obviously the town's famous landmark,
Arundel Castle, which looms high on the hill during the mile or so walk from the station to the town. Like the similar castles at
Windsor and
Warwick, Arundel is a hybrid of Norman motte-and-bailey remains and much later stately home. The gardens open before the keep, which in turn opens before the house, so that determined my order of doing things. Some of the rooms are monumental, the chapel, Barons' Hall and dining room in particular, but feel strangely cold. The library was my favourite room. This was the first (but not the last) time I experienced the drawback of going on holiday during term time - there are visiting school parties everywhere!
After the castle, I still had time to visit the small
town museum, the 19th century Catholic
Arundel Cathedral and take a walk around Arundel Park, taking in Hiorne Tower (built as a test project for the castle, and featured in Doctor Who), a valley full of grazing sheep and Swanbourne Lake.
Wednesday 13th October - This was my second full day in Portsmouth itself, and it was time to visit the city's main attraction - the
Historic Dockyard. There is a phenomenal amount of stuff to see and do here, far too much to cram into a single day - so it was just as well (a) they offer free return for a year; and (b) I had no plans for Friday. I went around
HMS Victory, the
Victory Gallery, the
Mary Rose (which was an eerie experience, due not just to the nature of the wreck itself, but the way it's presented, in low light alongside a reconstruction featuring artifacts retrieved from the wreck and audio/visual projections), a
harbour tour (which focussed on how this is still the UK's main working naval base - impressive to see HMS Prince of Wales moored up, with the Navy busy at work on her),
Boathouse 4 and (about half of) the
National Museum of the Royal Navy. All that, and I still felt I'd barely scratched the surface!
The dockyard closes at five, so I couldn't have seen more if I wanted to. After that, I walked back along the coast to Southsea, where I had another short swim in the sea before dark. I also treated myself to a nice Italian meal out at
Soprano's, which had been (deservedly) recommended by my hotel.
Thursday 14th October - Another day trip, this time to Brighton, which is surprisingly hilly for somewhere right on the coast. The main p(a)lace I wanted to visit here was, of course, the
Royal Pavilion. It's definitely unique - an Indian-inspired exterior constructed in iron over an older country house, with a Chinese-inspired interior festooned with dragons in every room. The three main showcase rooms (banqueting, music, saloon) are eye-catching and ostentatious in all the ways the rooms at Osborne are not; certainly a contrast. It's a building to admire rather than to love. Viewing the outside was slightly marred by the construction site for a Christmas ice rink right in front of the pavilion, which obscured my view and meant a large part of the grounds was closed.
I had a walk along the seafront to look at the fire-twisted remains of the West Pier, the
i360 tower (although I didn't go up in it, having already forked out for the Spinnaker earlier in the week) and the remaining
Palace Pier, repeated star of the silver screen. I quite wanted to visit the
Sea Life Centre (the oldest in the world) too, but it closes at 4pm and, by the time I'd finished my fish-and-chips-on-the-beach, there wasn't really time, so I whiled away a lazy rest of the afternoon on the beach and the pier, before catching the train back. It hadn't been the most successful day of the holiday, but it was still a good day out.
Friday 15th October - A second visit to the
Historic Dockyard, to see (most of) the attractions I hadn't been able to fit in on Wednesday. This time I looked around
HMS M.33 (a "lucky" survivor from the WW1 Gallapoli campaign, mostly taken over by a school party while I was there, searching for the cat-flap!), the
Dockyard Apprentice exhibition, the
HMS Invincible: Diving Deep exhibition, a short boat trip across to Gosport to see a bajillion things at the
Royal Navy Submarine Exhibition and finally the imposing
HMS Warrior (a state-of-the-art ironclad warship, designed to look like an old-fashioned sailing vessel, in the way only the Victorians could). I still didn't get around everything before the place closed, but I'd pretty much seen all I wanted to see.
I enjoyed a lazy stroll back along the seafront and a final dip in the sea. Well, more than a dip - I was in the water about 25 minutes and only got out because my feet were starting to go numb. Worth it though. After a warm shower, I ventured out again onto the pier at night and ate pizza while watching the waves crash against the shore. It had been a good holiday.
Saturday 16th October - Before I left, there was just about time to squeeze in a bit of parkrun tourism at
Portsmouth Lakeside. I spent a while agonising over the logistics, as it was a bit of a rush and involved local trains, but it worked out okay. I'd originally planned to do
Southsea parkrun, which starts just over the road from my hotel. Ironically, that parkrun was cancelled due to the
Great South Run, which I hadn't known was even a thing when I originally booked this holiday. Still, Lakeside was a prettier and more interesting course, and I got back in time to see the GSR 5k first man and first lady cross the finish line. I also managed a quick last walk on the beach before going back to shower and change, checking out of my hotel and taking the five hour train ride home.
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