Adventure In Venice

The Journey Can Sometimes Be More Important Than The Destination!

I had given up on taking the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express when they stopped using the British Pullman to operate the service through to and from London. That had always been the traditional route, the departure I used to see on the International Departures board at London Victoria many years ago and had always wanted to try; when it returned as a special luxury train I waited until an opportune time to take it, but then a coronavirus pandemic intervened, and by the time I started planning in the summer of 2023 a trip on the VSOE for my 70th birthday in 2024, Belmond had stopped operating out of Victoria, quoting difficulties owing to "Brexit". The last such trip was in the autumn of 2023 when I was in the middle of sorting out some health problems, so the idea was scrapped altogether. It would have been a lot of money to pay to have less than what I wanted to do; the new service involved starting from London St Pancras International by Eurostar and crossing Paris, as we have done so many times already - it lost so much of what made it special.

But then, out of the blue, came advertising from Great Rail Journeys, whose escorted tours we have taken many times. The advertising was for an independent tour comprising three nights in Venice, travelling out or back by VSOE and Eurostar and flying the other way, with an option of taking an extra day to travel by rail instead of air for the other direction. The price was what sold it, the whole trip less than what Belmond were asking just for the Orient Express and Eurostar section of the holiday .... to wheel out all the clichés, this was a game-changer, a no-brainer, and out came the diary to start the planning! To avoid the "we've done all this before" feeling at the start of the holiday, we would opt for the return trip being by the Venice Simplon Orient Express: this would take us as far as Paris and then Belmond, the VSOE operator, would book us Business Premier Class on Eurostar from Paris to London St Pancras International. We've never travelled Business Premier before so the whole trip back from Venice to London would be special.

For the outward trip we asked for the rail option, so that would indeed resemble many a previous departure from London but that was OK: this bit was not meant to be special - except that any European adventure is always special to a certain extent. Going by train would make it more of an adventure than flying since by travelling overland we would truly experience the journey and not simply drop into Venice from the sky - and in any case getting to an airport from where we live is a bit of a "mission" before we ever start. There would be an overnight stay in Montreux, Switzerland before an early-morning through train to Venice. This all looked great and we paid our deposit and awaited the departure date. Fortunately we had an adventure to Switzerland in the diary, too, also involving Montreux, in the summer, so we were not simply pacing the floor waiting for October to come round!

I booked the trip almost a year in advance, as soon as I was made aware of it, and so when my birthday came round both my wife and one of my sons bought me the Lego Orient Express set ... and although my daughter-in-law said they could take theirs back and get me something else I opted to keep it because the standard two coaches was a bit short and I thought I'd be able to make up something a bit longer using two sets! Such has been the busyness of my life this year that by the time we left I had completed only one set ... 

This being an independent trip, there was a fair bit of correspondence between me, Great Rail Journeys and Belmond to ensure that all the arrangements were complete (and I imagine a fair bit out of my sight between GRJ and several other companies, too), and eventually, a few weeks before departure, an email message from Great Rail Journeys arrived with multiple attachments containing the many train tickets and other vouchers and information that we would need while away. This time I bought my own train tickets to and from London and a room at the Premier Inn opposite St Pancras International station for the night before our departure. All was set.

Early on a sunny Saturday evening at the beginning of October we walked down to Stamford railway station with our cases packed for a real adventure. We were to see some familiar sights and a lot of very new sights, and we were on our own, exploring places and travelling a few new routes on new trains as well as some we had used many times before, including, of course, the very familiar Cross Country train from from Stamford to Peterborough! It was extremely busy, but everyone had a seat, and we sat near the luggage stack, ideal for our circumstances. I could not help thinking that this little train, perfectly adequate and comfortable (although in need of its pending refurbishment) was a long way from the splendid trains we were planning to use for the rest of our adventure!

At Peterborough we had a short wait for our connection to London; Sunday upgrade work on the East Coast Main Line meant that traffic on the line was rather reduced and when we boarded our train, on time, there were very few passengers in our coach so the complimentary service was very swift and fulsome. It was from the lowest-category Deli menu (trains were only starting at Grantham, so nothing hot was being served), but I enjoyed a very filling chicken brioche roll. We asked for a can of Hop On Board ale each as well as water for the trip and the usual crisps and the caramel pot for dessert and the little chocolate brownie to go with the coffee. Also supplied were biscuits, which we kept as "emergency rations" in case we needed them later in our adventure, and an extra can of ale each, which we also kept back for later.

Duly fortified we arrived in London needing no dinner and went straight to our hotel and to our room, via the Little Waitrose at Kings Cross station to buy fruit for the following morning when we had an early start. The adventure had begun! After all the planning and preparation it was hard to believe we were actually doing it, but I had a great "wodge" of home-printed tickets (also saved to our iPhones in case that would be more convenient) to prove that we really were.

You can never complain about a Premier Inn room!

We set alarms for six o'clock Sunday morning, got ready for the day and made our way to St Pancras International station. Walking down Midland Road and entering through the side entrance we were straight into the International Departures area as the gates were being opened at 06:45 for the 08:01 train for Paris. The queue moved swiftly and we were soon through the security check and the British and French passport control - although at the British one we were behind someone with really complex multiple passports which held us up a bit: how complicated can nationality and citizenship be? Anyway, early on a Sunday morning there was plenty of waiting space in the departures area, we found a table in the Station Pantry café and I went to buy coffee. At security I had got chatting to a smartly-dressed young man who was on his way to the races at Paris, "the biggest horse racing event in Europe," he said. Looking around there were several men in ties and many in waistcoats clearly going the same way. One of them was buying four pints of gassy beer to take to his table with his friends when I was buying our coffee - I really could not bring myself to drink any sort of beer at that time of day!

Travelling Standard Premier Class in this direction we were served a light breakfast soon after departure, having already eaten our fruit from Waitrose with our coffee at the Station Pantry. It is amazing how quickly the time passes on the train journey to Paris: it is not one of the world's most scenic railway routes, although some of the section through Kent, and some of that just north of the Paris suburbs are quite picturesque. The tunnels under London and under the English Channel, of course, provide no view of anything at all, but at least these days there is full 4G data coverage through the Channel Tunnel.

Having always changed station in Paris by the RER (two stops to Gare de Lyon from Gare du Nord, so fast and convenient, but the trains are unpleasant and often very busy and the stations are not wonderful, either), we experimented with the Metro which I knew would take longer but we were in no hurry, having plenty of time before our booked train to Geneva. It had been my intention to travel on Metro line 5 to the Gare d'Austerlitz which would have left us an easy walk to Gare de Lyon and had the side benefit of seeing the station at which we would arrive when we came back to Paris on the Venice Simplon Orient Express on Friday; unfortunately it was raining in Paris so that plan would have resulted in us becoming quite wet on that easy walk between stations, so instead of going on to Gare d'Austerlitz we changed trains at Bastille and went to all the way to Gare de Lyon under cover! We bought our lunch from Monop'daily at Gare de Lyon as we have before, but this time we ate it inside the station and not outside as on previous occasions.

As soon as the platform was announced we went to join our next train, a TGV Lyria for Geneva, and took our reserved seats on the lower deck of a First Class coach, a pair of window seats at a table for four, so we had company in the aisle seats for this stage of the trip, but in First Class we still had plenty of space to ourselves. This was a similar journey to the one we had taken on our escorted tour to Lausanne and Interlaken in the summer., the Alpine scenery beginning after the train left the high-speed line and started making its way eastward towards Switzerland. At Geneva we left the train and walked through the passport control and customs post with no delay: it was a bit busier there than usual because the train was terminating there, short of its normal terminus at Lausanne because of a problem on one Lyria set which left the service unable to operate its full timetable. Those going forward were directed to the next train for Lausanne, which was not long afterwards. We had a little longer to wait for the connection to Montreux where we were to spend the night, but that was fine because we wanted a coffee break anyway and found a strange little place called The Bloody Bar inside the station. I'm sure we used a café at this this station about ten years ago but it was not like this ...

Our regional train to Montreux was a Swiss double-decker and although we had no reserved seats we were in First Class and we opted to sit upstairs and enjoy the lake view. By the time we arrived in Montreux the sun was setting. Great Rail Journeys had booked us a room and breakfast at the Swiss Majestic Hotel, right opposite the station, but because our train was leaving very early in the morning we asked for packed breakfast to take on the train and were promised that this would be arranged. Our room was small but great, with all the features we needed, and a small balcony with a view over Lake Geneva. I was beginning to wish I'd asked for two nights here instead of just the one, but anyway we had some evening so we popped out for a salad from a supermarket and ate that for supper on our balcony. A brilliant part of the holiday. The sunset over the lake was fantastic, enhanced by a pleasure boat coming into Montreux pier, just along the shoreline from our hotel.

After supper we had a stroll along the lakeshore and then went to bed early ready for the morning's early start: that would be two early starts in a row, so we determined not to rush to be up on the third day!

When we checked out, our packed breakfasts were ready and waiting for us on the reception desk: this is Switzerland and most things just work. But we were off into Italy. Montreux station was familiar from our summer holiday, where we caught the Golden Pass Express to Interlaken among other things. This day we were taking a six-hour ride straight through to Venice on an Italian EuroCity train, starting with a Swiss crew and then to be changed for an Italian crew at Domodossola - where we found our timekeeping lost 13 minutes, which it never regained, during the crew change! Never mind, it did not affect our holiday but it just seemed an interesting factor in the way different nations operate. We were in First Class again and in the front coach, but although this was a long-distance international train it had no catering facility on board (well, not quite true: it had a buffet coach but the buffet counter was shut for the whole journey), but we had allowed for this eventuality and had boarded with coffee bought at the station, our packed breakfasts from the hotel, and a few bits left from our LNER trip two days before, as well as some fruit from home. The packed breakfasts were very worthwhile and so did last us through the whole morning, just before one o'clock at Venezia Santa Lucia station. The train had reversed at Milan, so when we arrived at Venice we were in the rearmost coach instead of being at the front, so we had a bit of a walk to the station exit, where we were met by our English-speaking guide who would escort us to our water taxi and take us to the hotel. I had wondered how this part of the tour would work: Great Rail Journeys had included a private boat transfer from the station to the hotel (I'd have walked!) and there was Francesco, as he introduced himself, waiting with a board with our name on it, and the GRJ logo, as we reached the station concourse. 

After waiting a few moments for the taxi to find docking space we were whisked off by the canals of central Venice, finishing up back on the Grand Canal (having cut off a big loop) for the final approach to  the Hotel Savoia & Jolanda which had been booked by Great Rail Journeys for us. Our room on the first floor had a view across the lagoon to the island of San Giorgio, and we overlooked the waterbus stops and gondola station right outside our windows. 

We took advice both from our guide who had brought us here and from the hotel reception staff concerning restaurants and gelateria, and their advice was to provide much of our agenda for the two full days we were here! It was, of course, already lunch time by now, so guided by Apple Maps we set off for a supermarket for a salad which we took back to our room for the "main course" and then set out again for a gelato for the "dessert". The recommended gelateria had such an enormous queue that we decided to look for a quieter one, which we duly found and enjoyed what we bought. We had been to the Tourist Information Office near the railway station and after taking advice bought a three-day pass each for the water buses, the "vaporetti," which are most practical way of getting around the whole city and its multiple islands. The passes were valid for 72 hours from first use, so would enable us to travel the rest of that day and the two full days. We tracked down the restaurant where we wanted to have dinner, advisedly the "best carbonara in Venice, the Dona Onesta. It did not take bookings, but it was by now almost our dinner time and its opening time, so we went for a short stroll and came back to ask for a table. We both ordered spaghetti carbonara and it was indeed extremely good, but not having tried the same thing in any other Venetian restaurant I cannot comment on whether it is the best!

We returned to our hotel by waterbus, using our passes, and it was soon time for bed in preparation for a day's exploring tomorrow. We wanted an early start because rain was forecast from about noon and we wanted to squeeze in as much as possible before the rain.

Breakfast in the hotel restaurant was good: the usual fruit juice, coffee and a buffet, which included scrambled egg so yellow that I wondered what happened to most of the egg whites! It was delicious, though. 

We took a waterbus to Murano, the island on which we had stayed last time we visited Venice, so it was interesting to revisit a few years on. We strolled around remembering our previous stay, and visited a few glassware shops, coming away with a new Christmas Tree decoration as our souvenir. One gelato, and it was time to take another waterbus to the island of Burano, much further out in the lagoon, which we had never visited before. This was to be a day of island-hopping, but it was dampened somewhat by the weather, as light rain began while we were on our way to the waterbus stop (the service to Burano only calls at one stop on Murano), and it was raining a bit more when we arrived on Burano, although it was patchy and we did have a couple of dry spells. We found a lovely café for coffee and a spot of lunch and then as we set off to explore the island the rain really came down solidly and quite heavily. The island was beautiful: it seems to be the thing to do to paint your house in bright, vibrant colour on Burano. You could never mistake it for any of the other islands. Well worth a visit. We walked as quickly as we could back to the waterbus stop and took the next departure back to central Venice, which took us via some of the other peripheral islands, but with wet and steamy windows we could not really appreciate them as we had hoped to do. The waterbus was busy but we managed to get seats, although in soaking wet trousers sitting was not easy! I had dried off reasonably well by the time the vaporetto moored at our local stop and we walked through the rain back to our hotel. We showered and changed and decided swiftly that dinner would be in the hotel restaurant that evening! As resident guests we received a 10% discount on the food bill at the restaurant, but the main incentive was not having to go back out in the rain!

The following day the weather was dry and mostly sunny, although a little windy but not too much. A much better day for weather, and we continued the island hopping theme, starting by taking the vaporetto straight across the the island of San Giorgio which was also new to us, although we had seen it quite a lot both on this visit and the previous one because you cannot really miss it! It is the background to life in this part of the city. We walked along the marina which forms the waterfront facing the place where our hotel is and saw the boats and ships making their way into and out of the Grand Canal and the Giudecca Canal which come together at this point: only the Giudecca Canal can take the larger vessels such as car ferries and the occasional cruise ship (which are no longer allowed to dock on Venice's islands). Building work on the island prevented us exploring there any further and we took the next waterbus along to Giudecca island and walked all along its waterfront, finding a local café for morning coffee, and crossing bridges until we reached the island of Sacca Fisola at the far end of the little chain of islands, from where we took a waterbus back into the city centre, for we were in search of a hat for Alison as well as some more exploring. In the hat shop were some interesting styles: the proprietor bought in a variety of plain hats and decorated them in various ways. We did not buy the steampunk top hat, although I was tempted until I remembered my luggage space!

Our exploration included some detective work to find the palazzo where we'd had dinner on our last night in Venice on the last trip - not to dine there again but because we had been taken there in the dark through a maze of back streets and picked up by water taxi direct from the palazzo and never really took in where we were. After a couple of false leads we did find it, the Palazzetto Pisani, with its front door in a narrow alley and a small mooring in which a boat was ready for its next trip. Now we knew where we had had that great dinner four years before: not a necessary piece of knowledge, but we were intrigued to know.

We walked back over the Grand Canal (using a bridge!) and took the next vaporetto back to San Marco and our hotel for dinner again. This time I had a pizza. I almost always have a Margherita, original and best in my opinion, and not just because they're usually the least expensive!

It was our last evening in Venice, for the following morning was to be the highlight of a trip which had already had its fair share of really, really good things: the ride home in the care of Belmond and its Venice Simplon-Orient-Express train. From check out at the hotel until arrival in London, all was booked and was to be of the highest standard. We had been used to Belmond's hospitality on the Royal Scotsman train three years ago and looked forward to a similar experience on the Orient-Express.

Yarmouth (no, the other one ...) and Chichester

Ready to go!

Summer holiday by rail on the south coast of England

I recently had an interesting conversation with an Australian lady at Yarmouth bus station on the Isle of Wight, off the coast of Hampshire, England. When we arrived to wait the few minutes for our bus she was engaged in a telephone call and when she had finished she told us that she had booked a hire car but it was on the other side of England in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk! The car-hire company had misunderstood her desire for a car in Yarmouth, and being a visitor to the UK it had not occurred to her to say, "Yarmouth, Isle of Wight," when making her booking; she had probably never heard of Norfolk. It really was the duty of the firm's call handler to enquire which Yarmouth she meant, surely, rather than assume it must be the big one - especially as that one is, strictly, Great Yarmouth. Woe betide anyone asking for a car in Newport, for that could end up anywhere.

I was in Yarmouth at the start of the latest of my south coast summer holidays. We always include a few days in Chichester in order to visit friends who regularly stay a week at nearby East Wittering, in Bracklesham Bay, and we precede and sometimes follow those few days with a visit or two to other places in the area on the way. In the last two summers we have stayed a few nights in Shanklin on the east coast of the Isle of Wight, and this year we decided to stay at the other end of the island, which involved a little research into both travel and accommodation, since I had only ever been there once before, which was by car (two cars, actually, for there were many of us) and in a self-catering holiday flat. I knew that there was a ferry from Lymington but that was about all I knew until I turned to the internet and looked at maps, hotel information and rail/ferry timetables.

Our planning chart for this year's south coast
summer holiday

The Lymington ferry by Wightlink goes across the Solent to Yarmouth every half-hour and connects this side with shuttle trains to and from Brockenhurst where neat connections are made with fast trains to and from London. There is no railway at the west end of the Isle of Wight and so although it is quite possible to complete a journey by bus I decided to start the search for a suitable hotel or bed-and-breakfast in Yarmouth. I soon came up with the George Hotel, just a few steps from the ferry terminal and with great reviews - and it had vacancies for the dates we needed. I snapped up three nights bed and breakfast at the George Hotel and then set to work to book a stay in Chichester. Our usual lodgings at 4 Canon Lane could not have us for the days we wanted, so I looked further and booked four nights at the Chichester Harbour Spa Hotel, nowhere near the harbour and not as near to the railway station as we have been before, but perfectly acceptable. I then waited a few months until the Advance rail tickets became available so that I could try to get good prices on First Class train travel and booked those: through to Yarmouth from London Waterloo, Peterborough to and from London Kings Cross, and Stamford to and from Peterborough; then there was Ryde to Chichester and Chichester to London Victoria. Everything else would be done by Oyster in London and contactless bus fare (and my senior citizens' concession pass) on the Isle of Wight.

Planning done and tickets bought we waited for the day of departure and set off with our cases to our local station to await our first train, the short hop to Peterborough for our LNER fast train to London. We did this section in standard class as usual and had our seats reserved near the luggage rack to make things easy for this quick trip. We had a little while to wait at Peterborough, but our First Class tickets from there to London include coffee and cake in the coffee bar of the Great Northern Hotel in Peterborough and that was where we awaited our connection, which, like all the other trains on this trip, was on time. The train to London was one of the old diesel High Speed Trains, now over forty years old but still providing excellent front-line service: would this be our last ride on one of these on this line, now that they are being replaced gradually by the new "Azuma" trains? We were served the usual drink and biscuits on the way to Kings Cross.

In London we made our way by Underground to Waterloo station. It was now after noon and I had allowed time for lunch before our booked departure for Yarmouth, so we had lunch at Auberge, a French restaurant right opposite the exit from the Underground at Waterloo, and then strolled along the Thames for a few minutes before going back to catch our train. We do like to enjoy the journey as part of the holiday, and how well this compared with the frantic search for a roadside restaurant, or, worse, the current type of fast-food motorway services!

The ferry Wight Sun docked beside Yarmouth Castle. We
had arrived a little earlier on Wight Sky. Our hotel, the
George, is on the left of the castle. Taken from the pier.

We travelled First Class to the ferry at Lymington: our fast train from London called at Brockenhurst in the New Forest where we changed into a connecting branch line train to Lymington Pier where our ferry was waiting. We had through tickets from London to Yarmouth so there was no fuss and with every train on time everything went smoothly - and we were comfortable in the knowledge that had something gone wrong there were half-hourly ferry crossings long after our intended one was due to sail. The First Class fare Waterloo to Yarmouth was just £19.60 each, including ferry! The ferry was a pleasant crossing with a buffet from which we enjoyed a cup of tea - no food necessary after a good lunch.

Once ashore, it was a very short walk around the corner to The George where we were shown to our very comfortable room, described as "cosy" by the receptionist, but nevertheless quite spacious and well-equipped. After unpacking we set off to explore Yarmouth, which is a very small town with a population of around 800 people but which receives a lot of visitors, many of them in their own boats. We visited the pier, which was built for the London South Western Railway as the terminal for passenger ferries before the service was upgraded to take vehicles as well. Now it is there for fun and for heritage and has recently been restored. The story of its restoration is interesting in itself and the toll of 50p well worth paying. The views of the town from the pier are good, too.

We walked along the shore and then along the disused railway line, now a bridleway and cycle track, as far as the former station which is now a café-restaurant with a strong railway theme. We promised ourselves we would return one day - it does not stay open for dinner and was closed when we went by. For now we returned to the town centre and had a great dinner at Jireh House, the former town hall now a restaurant and B&B.

And so to bed. Was this really only the end of the first day?! By the end of the next day it felt like we'd been there for a week ...

Freshwater Bay

The next day, Friday, was forecast to have by far the best weather of our time away so we decided that it would be the best day for exploring the west of the island and in particular for our visit to The Needles. The whole of the Needles headland is owned and cared-for by the National Trust and has an amazing amount of history in such a tiny area. It is quite a walk up to the Old and New Batteries (of which more shortly) and the view of the pointed rocky outcrops called The Needles with their lighthouse protecting shipping from them, but for its members the National Trust subsidises the bus fare on the Needles Breezer open-top tour bus, and this bus is the only one which goes right to the top, the ordinary services terminating at the "visitor attraction," which is also as far as you can get by car.
We took the Needles Breezer from Yarmouth bus station with our National Trust half-price Rover tickets and broke our journey for half an hour at Freshwater Bay where we had a brief walk along the beach before boarding the next Breezer on which we stayed up to its turning point at the Old Battery. There (after a cup of coffee in the 1940s-themed tea room) we climbed down to the tunnel to the searchlight position from which a brilliant view of The Needles and their lighthouse was to be had, and then explored the changing history of the Old Battery right up to its time as the "eyes" of the New Battery in twentieth-century conflicts.

The Recording Room at the rocket research facility

At what was once the New Battery we discovered the beginning and untimely end of the British contribution to space exploration. It was here at two gantries that British rockets were test-fired before being launched at Woomera in Australia. There was just one British satellite launched by a British rocket (built at Cowes on the Isle of Wight), before HM Government pulled the funding and British participation in space exploration came crashing down from its leading place to a cameo rôle. (Perhaps there is a lesson here for those who like to blame Johnny Foreigner for our nation's woes: how about having enough confidence in our own place in the world to put our money behind it?)

We walked down to the Needles Landmark Attraction, as the visitor site at the neck of the headland is called, with a stunning view of the Alum Bay multi-coloured cliffs and sands on the way. There we caught the Needles Breezer bus back to Yarmouth and made our way to Off The Rails, the railway-themed restaurant, for a very late lunch, just before their 4pm closing time! The food and drink matched the superb quality of their railway-retro décor and style, and the service was very good, and friendly. The former railway line was busy with cyclists and it was clear that this is a popular meal stop for cyclists, many customers having cycling helmets with them, and some serious people were clad in Lycra!

Back into town we took the Needles Breezer one last time and stayed on it through Freshwater Bay and the Needles headland, getting off in Totland for a walk along the beach. There we saw that Totland Pier is being restored (much work needed!) and on our way north towards Colwell Bay we came across a landslip from several years ago where the footpath has only recently been reopened, by-passing the damaged section. We walked back up to the main road at Colwell Common and took a service bus back to our hotel for the night. It had been a brilliant day: great weather, much walking in the fresh air, a lot of new things learned, superb views from the top of the bus, and an excellent lunch in entertaining surroundings.

The Master Gunner's dining room at the castle

We had done in one day almost everything planned for two! After a leisurely breakfast on the Saturday we went to explore Yarmouth Castle. Looked after by English Heritage, Yarmouth Castle has a long history as a coastal defence battery along with Hurst Castle opposite on the English mainland and a number of other blockhouses and batteries along the Isle of Wight northern coast. They are often considered follies as they never fired a shot in defence of the realm, but when you look at the formidable firepower available they probably did an excellent job for centuries simply by being there: the real folly would have been on the part of any enemy captain who tried to get past them! These defences were erected after a French invasion of the island, and there was never another. Yarmouth Castle was designed to defend against a land attack also, in case an enemy landed from another direction with a view to establishing a base on the island and disabling the sea defences. It is fascinating to visit, and its history is intimately tied in with the one-time governor of the island whose home there is now The George hotel in which we were staying. We looked down from the castle walls on our breakfast table, and what was once the front entrance to the castle, with the Tudor arms over it, now faces into the hotel garden. We were there two hours altogether, including some time looking over the harbour (when the ferry was not obstructing the view!) and learning about local shipwrecks in a display in one of the rooms in the castle.

The castle's coffee shop is no longer open but we made a final visit to Off The Rails for coffee and cake to keep us going and then took a trip on the Island Coaster, another tour bus service by Southern Vectis, which lasted most of the rest of the day! This took us back down the west of the island to The Needles (but not onto the actual headland as the Needles Breezer had done) and then along the dramatic south coast of the island all the way to Ventnor and then back up though Shanklin and Bembridge, terminating at Ryde. It was not fast; it was not meant to be. This was a ride for the scenery and it was well worth it. We saw both coast and countryside that we had never visited before. After a very good fish and chip dinner at a restaurant on the seafront at Ryde we travelled back to Yarmouth on ordinary service buses with a change of bus at Newport. Southern Vectis provide an excellent service throughout the island with a range of helpful tickets which make getting about both simple and inexpensive. I now have a senior citizen's concessionary bus pass, but still have to pay for my wife's travel, and the Vectis 24-hour Rover ticket meant that after the afternoon's travelling there was still enough validity to get her to Ryde the following morning for the next stage of our holiday. (I did have to pay a fare for myself for the Island Coaster - reduced for a senior citizen - because as a leisure service it is not covered by the pass.)

And so after checking out of The George after breakfast on Sunday we set off by bus with our luggage, changing in Newport again, for Ryde. As it happened we boarded a bus to Ryde immediately after arriving from Yarmouth, and were well ahead of schedule. I had allowed time for lunch in Ryde but we did not need any after a good breakfast, and we had had our fish and chips the previous evening, so we went straight to the pier head on foot and boarded the catamaran that was just docking as we got there. It was a lovely sunny day so for the first time ever we travelled on the "sun deck" of the boat and arrived in Portsmouth two hours ahead of schedule. A Southern train was about to depart calling at Chichester so we hurried to board that and probably broke the record for travelling from Yarmouth to Chichester, if such a record exists, all by sheer chance!

Chichester is a wonderful little city (similar to our home town of Stamford, but rather bigger), and we very much enjoy spending time there. After checking in to the Chichester Harbour Spa Hotel we met our friends for an early-evening drink and then went for our evening meal at the Côte brasserie where we have eaten at least once every time we have been here (why? well, for no other reason than that it was the first restaurant we visited when we first came here five years earlier and we rather liked it!).

The following day, Monday, was our day to join our friends at the coast at Bracklesham Bay after the usual good hotel breakfast. A four-per-hour bus service operates there from Chichester and we had a great day with them both on the beach and walking on the edge of Chichester Harbour.

The view from our hotel room in Chichester,
across the rooftops to the Festival Theatre amid the trees.

On Tuesday we went our separate ways for the morning and early afternoon, although we met for coffee at noon. I explored the western edge of the city where on the map I had seen some evidence of a disused railway line; as a former planner I do like to explore these bits of urban history. Although a footpath/cycleway followed a course which looked like it might have been a railway line, that was only clinched when I found a line of disused telegraph poles. It didn't merit any celebration but it was good to feel right!

Tuesday evening was booked for a musical at Chichester Festival Theatre, the third year we have done this with our friends, and was the usual stunning performance we have come to expect. We are already thinking of 2020.

Wednesday was an empty day in the schedule. I had toyed with the idea of a visit to Goodwood House but this was complicated to book and with much walking involved it depended on good weather, which was far from assured. So that was put aside and we visited the wonderful open-air Amberley Museum, a collection celebrating and remembering Sussex life through industrial and other artefacts and set in a disused limestone quarry. It includes historic buses, a narrow-gauge railway, workshops, a garage, a museum of electrical devices, another collection of TV and radio equipment, a print shop and lots of other exhibits including the limekilns once the centre of activity of the site. The entrance was right opposite the station and so the place was easy to reach and easy to find. We stayed there for most of the day and I took dozens and dozens of photographs.

A mine entrance at Amberley Quarry, as used in the James
Bond film A View To A Kill as Zorin's Mainstrike Mine

For the third time this year we came upon a James Bond connection, as much of the action of the film A View to a Kill was filmed at a mine entrance on the museum site, and there are still two tipper wagons carrying the livery and logo of Zorin Industries. After a visit to a local pub and a stroll along the riverside at Amberley we took the train back to Chichester for our last night.




We were not scheduled to leave until mid-afternoon on Thursday and in the morning after checking out we left our luggage at the hotel and walked the couple of miles to Fishbourne to revisit the site of the Roman Palace which we had seen several years ago on a previous visit. Knowing what to expect we learnt rather more this time and also enjoyed our walk in the sun. We returned to Chichester by bus in the afternoon (no lunch needed after hotel breakfast!), collected our cases and made our way to the station for the journey home.

The trip home from Chichester should have been a simple one: through train to London Victoria, cross London at our leisure (I had allowed two hours) then LNER First Class to Peterborough and a change for Stamford - with enough time during the change to pop into Waitrose for milk. It finished OK but it was not a good start when our first train was several minutes late and was then terminated early at Horsham so we had to travel on the following train. Nevertheless we had time in London to travel from Victoria to Kings Cross by bus (never quick, always interesting!) and still had refreshments in the First Class Lounge before getting our on-time LNER train with complimentary light supper. We took a taxi home from Stamford station at the end of a long day and unpacked rapidly ready for the next exciting instalment of our travelling lives, to follow soon! (And I have applied for delay repay for the Southern Railway section of the trip, which amounted to a half-hour late arrival at Victoria.)

An Exciting Few Months

Planned and spontaneous trips by train

To come soon is our usual few days on the south coast of England, this year beginning with the west end of the Isle of Wight, and there are already two further firm dates in the diary for next couple of months. 

One is to the Engadin in Graubunden (Grisons) Canton in Switzerland to research for my proposed model railway based on the Rhatische Bahn in that area, including a visit to the Albula Railway Museum at Bergen. 

The other arose from a marketing email from the Royal Hotel in Bath, England. We have stayed there a few times and have joined their loyalty scheme and mailing list, and every now and then they write to me with a great special offer: I have never been in a position to take them up on any of these before, but now that we are both retired we are free enough to fit in a trip when the bargains are available. So in October we are off to Bath again and will take the opportunity to have a session at the Thermae Bath Spa: having telephoned the hotel within minutes of reading the email I then went to the Cross Country Trains website and booked Advance First Class tickets to Bath Spa via Birmingham and Bristol at a reasonable price. It should be a great break, with dinner with wine included in the hotel special offer - we have never dined there before in all the times we have stayed there.

That, then, takes us towards the end of the year. But first, Isle of Wight, Chichester and the English seaside holiday!

Southern Summer Sunshine; Solent and Sussex

A rail tour of the south coast of England

As usual this summer we planned to spend a day at the seaside with our friends who habitually stay at East Wittering. We have normally stayed about a week and visited other places in the south of England, including a few days at Chichester which is our base for the day trip to East Wittering. Last year we preceded Chichester with two nights on the Isle of Wight and this year we decided to make that three nights, with one day given to visiting Carisbrooke Castle and one to visiting Osborne House, both English Heritage royal palaces. We used Tesco Clubcard vouchers to pay for a year's membership of English Heritage which gave us free access to these places, and we began to plan an itinerary and book hotels and travel.

Preparatory research for the holiday involved finding the opening days of the two Isle of Wight places we wanted to visit (easy from the English Heritage website), determining when our friends would be at East Wittering and then booking the accommodation. A couple of years before we had returned via a day in Brighton and I decided to book a night there as well this time and see a bit more of this "seaside city," as it calls itself. I booked the same hotel in Shanklin as last year as it was so welcoming and comfortable, the usual  B&B in the cathedral precincts in Chichester and a seafront hotel in Brighton then waited for the Advance First Class train tickets to become available.

It was not a promising spring in 2018: daily rain, often heavy and prolonged, following a cold and snowy winter, but when summer came we had many long, hot, sunny days and a holiday at the coast was just what we needed. Packing was like packing for the Mediterranean this year: no waterproofs, no jumpers, no long sleeves, lots of shirts and underwear to allow for frequent changes, not many socks because I'd be in sandals most of the time.

It was on a hot, sunny Friday morning that we walked down to Stamford station with our roll-along suitcases to catch the 11:00 train to Peterborough, grateful for the air-conditioning on the train. At Peterborough we changed into a LNER train for London Kings Cross which was on time leaving but slowed down at Hitchin and never really caught up again, being almost ten minutes late into Kings Cross. I had allowed just an hour to cross to Waterloo for our train to Portsmouth Harbour, and while the fifty minutes we had were sufficient we could not afford to relax too much: it was not necessary to run, but we did have to keep moving. I have learnt the lesson here: in future we shall allow 90 minutes, not 60, and we'll look into ways of making the crossing which involve less inter-platform walking at Underground stations! The next mistake was to use the First Class section in the front half of the train to Portsmouth: yes, it is nearer the exit to the Isle of Wight catamaran at the other end of the line, but it is further from the refreshment trolley's starting point and by the time the caterer had reached us he had sold out of sandwiches, so lunch was nibbles (and some fruit we had brought with us) and Pinot Noir - could have been worse. This was not such a comfortable train as the one we had used last year, although it was more than OK, and the toilets were not in a good state, which was not OK: one near us flooded and the other without water. Doubtless there were others in the train somewhere but we did not seek them out for that could have been a long walk to find nothing better.

At Portsmouth Harbour we had a slight wait for the catamaran which was a little late - so many passengers, I think, that it was taking so long to unload and load and gradually becoming later as the day wore on.  We met a German couple in the queue and were fascinated to learn that they were not on a tour of England but were simply coming for a week's holiday on the Isle of Wight: it is a resort to which people from continental Europe come for holidays just as we do.

It was a quick crossing, but the connection with the Island Line train to Shanklin was tight and they do not like to run late. Again, we did not have to run and we had adequate time provided that we simply kept moving. The guard was blowing his whistle to hasten straggling passengers just as we were taking our seats. Last year when we had done this trip the weather was damp and murky and rain was just beginning; this year it was hot and sunny - and here on the Island the temperature was fresher than on the mainland, "only" 24 degrees, and there was a slight breeze. The 1938 tube train which now serves the Island Line rattled its way to Shanklin and then we walked down to the Channel View Hotel and checked in. This year I had specified a sea view room and we were not disappointed. We had a splendid room with windows on two sides, both with a sea view.

We strolled into the town centre the first evening and then through to the Old Village to dine at Keats Cottage - which we enjoyed so much we returned on the second evening as well! Returning via a circuitous route to the beach and back along the seafront we had an early night and good night's sleep after all our travels, and then the great hotel breakfast, served at reserved tables, so no hunting for a space and queuing at the buffet.

Our first full day, Saturday, was allocated to the visit to Carisbrooke Castle, and we began with a walk to the bus station. Boarding the bus to Newport we bought 48-hour rover tickets which would cover all our travel on the island for our whole stay without having to think about the cost - searching for change is not an issue these days anyway as most buses, including those on the Isle of Wight, now take contactless payment. To get to the castle from Newport bus station there is a variety of bus routes, and it so happened that there was a bus to Carisbrooke almost ready to leave as we got off ours from Shanklin, so we boarded that and were on our way: from the stop at Carisbrooke there was a short walk up the hill to the castle. There is much history to explore at Carisbrooke Castle, going back to the Norman conquest, including the famous donkey treadmill-worked well (which was not working because of the very hot weather), but we were most interested in the era when it was the home of Princess Beatrice who founded there a museum of the Isle of Wight, apparently the only museum founded by a member of the Royal family (although her father Prince Albert must have had quite an influence on the South Kensington museums).

Our visit to the castle included a light lunch at the cafeteria and then we made our way by a different route down the hill into the centre of Carisbrooke village where we caught the next bus back to Newport and a connection to Shanklin; this time we took the bus that goes the longer way round via Ventnor in order to see the place in which we had spent our last morning on the island last summer.

On the Sunday we visited Osborne House and decided to take a train as far as Ryde rather than the bus, just to make the trip a bit quicker. We bought day return tickets to Ryde Esplanade station (which is beside the bus station in Ryde): for a few extra pence this gave us the option of returning by train if we wished, but in the event we went back by bus to see a road we had not before travelled. From Ryde to Osborne the bus frequency is only hourly so the day's trip needed more planning than the previous day's when there were frequent buses between Newport and Carisbooke. We had been to Osborne before but it certainly repaid a return visit, especially since the Swiss Cottage display has been refreshed. We did not see everything all over again but quickly revisited the house and garden, and then after a good lunch at the Terrace Restaurant used the courtesy minibus service to the Swiss Cottage, walking down from there to the beach. We spent some time sitting on the beach in the sunshine, watching the boats, and had a cup of tea there from the tea-room. We had to wait a little while for the courtesy bus back up to the house and towards the exit before taking the service bus back to Ryde and then home to Shanklin. Having had lunch out we did not need a restaurant that evening but bought a takeaway salad from the Co-op and "dined" in our room at the hotel.

The Channel View Hotel has a small swimming pool on the ground floor and we made use of that on one evening, very welcome in the hot weather.

Fisherman's Cottage, Shanklin Beach

Monday was our day for moving on and after breakfast and checking out we left our baggage at the hotel and went for a stroll into Shanklin town centre via the seafront, including coffee at the Fisherman's Cottage (a bar-restaurant on the beach) and the cliff lift (recently refurbished and very smart) and then returned and asked for a taxi to the station; the taxi was there by the time we picked up our cases and had us at the station in time to catch an earlier train than we had planned! The booking office was closed and we had to buy our tickets on the train, two singles to Chichester.

Our earlier train got us to an earlier catamaran sailing (with less of a wait for its departure) and then we were fortunate enough to catch a fast train to Chichester just before it left Portsmouth Harbour! I had anticipated waiting at Shanklin, at Ryde and at Portsmouth and so we arrived in  Chichester an our or more before I had expected, having had an easy journey. We checked in once more at 4 Canon Lane where we have stayed a couple of times before, in the Cathedral grounds. My wife wandered off around the shops and I stayed in the room, writing this blog post and filing my photographs of the Isle of Wight part of the holiday. We went to dinner at Côte Brasserie, which we have done on our first evening in Chichester every year since we first came (I think this was our sixth year) so it probably counts as a tradition now.

The agenda for the second day was to meet our friends for the theatre in the evening, preceded by a pre-theatre supper at The Bell Inn, right opposite the Chichester Festival Theatre and set up for getting meals served in time for clients to get to the theatre. We saw an hilarious production of Me and My Girl and retired for the night. Did I mention that there was rain that afternoon and evening? Forecast on and off and not really spoiling things - we did not use a taxi to get to the theatre this year as we had last, the rain being showery and allowing us to walk, taking shelter from time to time.

Summer returned the following morning, and we were off on the bus to spend the day at the coast with our friends at their rented holiday cottage at Bracklesham Bay. Bus services are very good at filling in the bits that the trains don't quite reach and although we are open to using taxis and self-drive hire we seldom resort to taxis and have never had to hire a car yet. There was a fair bit of cloud and a little wind and out on the beach I managed to pick up more of a tan than any other day of the summer (which is quite something in 2018), and indeed slight burn here and there - which was a surprise. And so back to our last night in our super room at 4 Canon Lane, a room we'd had the first time we stayed there, spacious and very pleasant.

On the final morning in Chichester we had a cooked course at breakfast - usually we have the lighter buffet option here but we were intending not to stop for lunch this day. After packing and checking out we trailed our cases off into town and had coffee at Boston Tea Party's new branch in the city: one of our friends is a waitress there, and we had enjoyed the branch in Bath so we knew we would like it. We like the ethos and attitude of the company as well as the coffee! And so to the rail station to await and board a Coastway train to Brighton for the next stage in the holiday. Although the railway follows the coast reasonably closely you do not see a great deal of the sea from the trains except around Shoreham-by-Sea, and then it is mostly docks and warehouses. But soon we arrived in the splendour of Brighton's glorious terminal station. Brighton is built on such a hillside that the approach is deeply below ground, with a huge cutting towering over the trains, but the concourse of the station is above street level, for the ground falls away the equivalent of several storeys in the length of the station; furthermore it continues to fall away and presumably the station is a long way from the seafront because it would be impractical to extend the line any further with a station on top of an enormous viaduct!

We walked down to the seafront and turning right were soon at the Hilton Brighton Metropole where I had booked a sea view room for one night to round off the holiday. We checked in and went to our room which certainly lived up to the Hilton description: large, with bath and shower, and with a great view over the sea (and the ruin of the west pier), and a fantastically comfortable king-size bed. I began to think it was a shame we were only staying one night. We unpacked what we needed to and had a cup of tea and then wandered off around the city, exploring the famous Lanes, and booked supper at an Italian restaurant, Al Duomo, at which we had had a snack on our previous visit, to which we then returned after further exploration.

As we prepared for bed we looked out of the window and noticed a side of morris men making their way along the seafront on foot and by cycle: they stopped right opposite our window on the recently-improved paved public open space and performed some folk dances. Not normally my thing, although I have friends in that world, but it was a lovely end to the day.

The following morning we checked out and asked the concierge to look after our cases while we went to hunt down some breakfast, finally settling on Lucky Beach, a much better place than its name sounds! An ethically sound, healthy place with an ideal breakfast menu for those of us who are hungry but trying to keep down our fat intake: thoroughly recommended! While we were there the rain started and we moved under cover ... then we strolled along the front to the Volks Electric Railway which I had long wanted to try. We rode out eastwards on the next train - they are more like trams - which were operating a quarter-hourly service. We got off at the far end at Black Rock which is near Brighton Marina, which is much less good than its name sounds. And it was raining, and the wind was blowing very fiercely. We got very wet, then we discovered that owing to a faulty train (well, it is the world's oldest electric railway!) the service was now only half-hourly and so we decided to walk to the halfway station rather than wait here with nothing to see for another 20 minutes. Some of the walk was under trees so we got less wet, then out again to be water-cannoned by nature, but by the time we reached the station the rain had stopped (just as well: there was no shelter on the station!)  but the (warm) wind blew just as strongly and we travelled on the open platform at the end of one coach so that by the time we reached the city centre (Aquarium station, opposite the Sea Life Centre) we were as dry as if we had been tumble-dried!

We went back to our hotel to collect our cases, getting soaked again in the process as the rain came down once more, but again drying out by the time we reached the hotel. As it was uphill all the way to the station we asked for a taxi - we were told that the waiting time was half an hour but by good fortune a taxi happened to arrive bringing someone from the station which was available to take someone back, so we took that and were taken no more quickly but a good deal more easily up to the station. We had open tickets so did not need any particular train and were not intending to leave just yet, for under the arches at the front of the station (remember the rapidly-falling ground level) was a toy and model museum which I just had to visit. Well worth a look, and as with all these places we spent a lot of time, along with all other visitors, saying things like, "I had one of those," "Do you remember these," and "My Mum had that!" We'll have to go back, there was so much to see.

And so to the station and the train back. We had First Class day singles for the Gatwick Express, the fastest trains between Brighton and London, which are half-hourly; but ours was slightly delayed by a trespass incident. Then it was a bit more delayed and a bit more. Fine: we had bought salads from Marks and Spencer on the station and so ate them on the station rather than aboard the train. It finally came in over 25 minutes late and left at the time of the next departure (which arrived on another platform as we were boarding ours!). Indeed, although the driver had encouraged everyone to claim Delay Repay the ticket inspector reckoned the train was on time: as far as he was concerned it was the next train! We were in no hurry and on arrival at London Victoria swiftly met our son for a drink at the Grosvenor Hotel before going on to Kings Cross (by bus; we were in no hurry and the ride is great) to await our train to Peterborough and then home to Stamford. The weather had brightened up and it was lovely evening to travel.

The Traditional Route to the Isle of Wight

Our location on my iPhone screen
as the catamaran left Portsmouth
Harbour on our way to Ryde

We have had several holidays now on the Sussex coast, sometimes tripping out to Hampshire. We always stay in Chichester and spend at least a day with our friends who rent a bungalow at Bracklesham Bay. Two years ago we went to Portsmouth to visit the Mary Rose Museum and when we saw how easy it was to get across to the Isle of Wight we went back the following day and visited Osborne House - you can read all about it in A South Coast Adventure. Last year I had hoped to visit the Isle of Wight Steam Railway but the industrial troubles on Southern Railway made that impossible to do, so we put it off until this year and made our 2017 trip into a bit of a tour. I managed to plan the whole holiday to require only one journey to be made on Southern, and that could be replaced by a bus trip if the trains were not running! (But the industrial action was suspended and the trains were running with only the normal Southern cancellations.)

As usual we would go one way and come back another and the route fulfilled several objectives:

• To use the traditional route all the way from London Waterloo to Shanklin with through First Class tickets
• To be on the Island on a day when the Steam Railway was operating to full timetable
• To travel back via Salisbury and the scenic route to Bath (we had come this way last year and I wanted to see it from the other direction)
• To avoid reliance on the dispute-ridden Southern Railway
• To provide enough time to relax and enjoy the journey

Booking was complex. I needed a hotel room for two nights at Shanklin, a Sunday on the Isle of Wight, a day in Portsmouth so that we could visit the Mary Rose Museum again now that the ship is fully preserved and can be seen properly,  and three nights in Chichester. Given the destination and the time of year I bagged the Shanklin hotel first, then one night in Portsmouth and three in Chichester; I came unstuck slightly in Chichester and we had to change rooms after the first night because three nights in one room were not available in the cathedral guest house where we wanted to stay: small price to pay for everything else falling into place!

Tickets ready at Waterloo.
First Class London to Shanklin:
through ticket just £17.35 each!

I booked the Mary Rose Museum in advance but the best deal for Steam Railway was an inclusive rover ticket which has to be bought from the station at Shanklin and covers the Steam Railway along with the Island Line (the national rail service on the island).

Train tickets for all the main legs of the journey were bought in advance as soon as the Advance First Class tickets went on sale, which in the case of the Waterloo-Shanklin leg was not until a fortnight before we left, a tad nail-biting but we got there. These tickets are very substantially cheaper than off-peak Standard Class ones bought on the day and gave us a much better experience, but because of all the work being done at Waterloo station the timetable was not fixed that weekend until very late and so they could not sell Advance tickets until then either, and when they did there were very few, but I got the two I needed.

And off we went.

The trip began as always with the stroll to Stamford station, on a Saturday morning because we wanted the middle day on the Isle of Wight to be Sunday. We left Stamford at 10:00 and were in Shanklin at tea time, a quick, smooth and simple trip. The usual change of train at Peterborough and then Virgin Trains East Coast, First Class, to London Kings Cross. In the past I've walked to Waterloo from Kings Cross but it's a bit of a trek with holiday luggage so we used the Underground, Northern Line to Bank then Waterloo & City Line to complete the trip. The transfer went so well that we had an hour to spare at Waterloo before our booked train and spent it choosing a packed lunch in the station shops and looking around at some of the other shops. We also had a quick look at the work beginning to open the former international platforms for local use as part of the work to expand the station.

First Class saloon on the main line to Portsmouth Harbour

Our train was announced in good time and we went to board it. Our tickets were valid only for the 13:05 departure but we had no specific seat reservations and went for the First Class section nearer the front of the train so as to be nearest the ferry at Portsmouth Harbour. The SouthWest Trains express train was very smart and comfortable inside and we were delighted with the accommodation. It was fast and smooth and whisked us rapidly through southwest London, stopping occasionally. There were no refreshments included in the fare (and as I had paid only £35 for both of us to travel in some luxury I could hardly complain!) but there was a retail trolley and we bought a half-bottle of wine and some fruit cake to round off our lunch brought with us from the station.

I know, I look more like I'm commuting to
work than going on holiday, but we like to
wear our best outfits for the journey so as not
to crush them in the suitcase. Anyway, it's all
part of the "updated retro" style of our holidays!
On the train to Portsmouth again.

Before long we had our first fleeting glimpse of the sea as the train crossed a creek onto Portsea Island and made its way along the final stretch all through Portsmouth and onto the pier at Portsmouth Harbour.

Walking along the platform the ramp down to the Isle of Wight catamaran was right in front of us and we strolled down: there was a short wait for the catamaran departure and a comfortable waiting area with a café bar where we had cup of tea before boarding. We showed our train tickets which included the crossing on the WightLink catamaran and sat down for the short trip across the Solent. The forecast rain began at this point and visibility became poor (but not unsafe!) and we waited under the canopy at Ryde Pier Head station for the little ex-Underground train that would take us the rest of the way to Shanklin. It soon came and with several other luggage-bearing holidaymakers we trundled our way down the east coast of the Isle of Wight, in our case to the current end of the line at Shanklin. Nothing much to see through the wet windows and we walked to the Channel View Hotel - only about a five-minute downhill walk - with hoods up. Not a good start, but this was the only bad weather we had on the Hampshire half of the holiday.

When we added it it all up we reckon we paid around £75 for the two of us to get to Shanklin from Stamford, and it took an effortless, unhurried seven hours from our door to the reception of the hotel. I reckon that compares pretty well to driving and queuing (and paying) for the car ferry. Standard Class travel would have cost even less, of course, but with First at those prices, why on earth would we go Standard? Or drive?

View from our window on arrival

View from our window next morning!

The weather on the

Isle of Wight!

Our room was not advertised as having a sea view (which costs extra, apparently), but I was quite happy with this view of the sea!

The rain subsided and we went for a walk along the seafront and then inland to the old village, where we had dinner at a restaurant chosen from Trip Advisor, and from reading the menu outside and made a mental note of another restaurant to use the following day. We did not get very wet although the rain came and went a bit, and our jackets dried out well enough in our lovely hotel room which actually had coat hooks, not that common a feature.

On the Sunday morning we were down to breakfast in good time, waited service here with some buffet items. Brilliant view out to sea from the breakfast room, but facing east on a bright, sunny morning meant we could not actually look out much because the sun was straight in our faces ...

Island Line train preparing to leave Shanklin for Ryde

Isle of Wight Steam Railway train at Smallbrook Junction

Off to Shanklin station to buy our Island Liner tickets which gave us the run of both island railways for the whole day. First off to Smallbrook Junction where the Steam Railway meets the electrified Island Line. The ride on the ex-Tube stock was a lot more interesting than on the gloomy afternoon the day before: we could see the sea in places, the countryside and towns in others. It was warm and sunny when we got off at Smallbrook and went over to the platform where a steam train already stood waiting. No queue for a ticket, we just showed our Island Liners and went to find a seat. The ancient suburban coaches (also from London but much older than the 1938 Tube stock we'd just used!) had separate compartments with a door each, and finding a compartment to ourselves proved impossible, but two seats together was easy enough. This train took us straight to  Wootton at the other end of the line. Had we chosen, it would have been possible from here to catch a bus to East Cowes or to Newport, but although there would have been time for a little wondering we decided just to go for a brief walk and catch the next train back, thus we would have ridden behind both the locomotives in steam that day and on both sets of vintage coaches. The dark green Southern Railway livery looked really great on a sunny day and the whole railway was full of atmosphere.

Between trains at Havenstreet - you'd also be between trains
if the trains were both here

We got off the next train at Havenstreet (or Haven Street as its station name boards read) which is the main station on the line where the preservation work is done and the visitor facilities are. We had a glass of beer and watched the trains for a bit, avoiding the "Railway Folk" who were there to add a bit of extra entertainment for children, but it is a long time since we last needed that facility (although the time will come again when the grandchildren are not much older!). We then visited the museum, the carriage works and the gift shop (gifts for the aforesaid grandchildren) and had coffee and cake - there was an ice-cream in there somewhere, too, but I can't remember when we had that - and caught a train back to Smallbrook Junction. Everything at Havenstreet and throughout the day was of the highest quality and I cannot recommend the Isle of Wight Steam Railway highly enough: it is one of those good days out that will stay with me for a long time.

At Smallbrook we went back to the Island Line and could have used it for the rest of the day to
explore the east side of the island, but there is more to life than squeezing every last penny out of a rover ticket and we just travelled as far as Sandown and walked to the seafront there, from where we could see Shanklin along the bay. We decided to walk along the promenade which was well-maintained all the way along the beach to Shanklin, joining where we had walked the previous evening. The tide was well is, so walking on the actual beach was out of the question, and even with a calm sea we did have to dodge the spray in places!

We made our way back to our hotel and enjoyed a swim in its small swimming pool, and then went out for dinner at the restaurant we had identified the night before in the old village, telephoning first to reserve a table, which turned out to have been wise as it was very busy (this is a Sunday!) and some people did have to be turned away.

There was no planned agenda for the Monday provided that we ended up at Portsmouth by bedtime, so we had a leisurely breakfast and checked out. The hotel kept our luggage for us and we took the bus to Ventnor, which had been the next station along the line before it was truncated at Shanklin.

At Ventnor we first visited its small heritage museum where we discovered that this had been a small, poor, fishing village before it became a health resort for those suffering from the respiratory diseases of the industrial era, and then the railway came and became a more general holiday resort. The railway has since gone and town has suffered somewhat from the shrinkage of its tourist business, like so many other English resorts, but it is picking up again now. We had a fantastic ice-cream at a place called Crave a few doors down from the museum and after a walk along the seafront, coffee at the art deco Winter Gardens pavilion then caught our bus back to the hotel.

Reunited with our luggage we now walked to the station for the last time on this trip and bought two single tickets to Portsmouth Harbour for the next exciting stage of our holiday.