Tuesday 7th September

Walked into Southampton and caught a local Greyhound bus to Portsmouth – senior discount for Adrian 2pound fifty return.
We walked through the town for a while then we had to have the usual holiday by the sea lunch of fish and chips. They were enormous servings and very nice fish as well.
After the repast we wandered into the Naval historical area, the home of HMS Victory and the Mary Rose. Victory was the flag ship of Lord Nelson when the English defeated the Spanish Armada around 1802. The ship is still a serving ship of the UK navy and has a Captain and crew assigned to it even though it never leaves the dry dock. The tour of the ship started at 4pm, which was too late for us.
The Mary Rose was built for Henry VIII and sank in the Thames about 30 years after it was commissioned. It has lain at the bottom of the Thames for 450 years and the salvage and restoration was commenced in the late eighties. A new museum is scheduled to open in 2012. Unfortunately, that too was not opened for visitors. The complete tour was 40 pounds, but as we couldn’t see either the Mary Rose or do a tour of Victory, we declined the invitation and just wandered around the area. We did get photos of the Victory and walked around the outside. We couldn’t believe the amount of rope that the ship needed to be operational. The anchor required 250 men to raise from the bottom. One of the men serving on the Victory at Trafalgar (Armada battle) was a Christopher Dixon, a relation perhaps?
After a nice Cappuccino at the local café we caught the bus back to the ship. We had a little time before the bus and we espied a Marks and Spencer’s. It was part of a giant outlet shopping complex! Oh joy! Luckily we only had a little time to do much damage to the VISA.