Portsmouth and Plymouth

The next stop on our journey is Plymouth. The original idea was to use this as a staging point to explore Cornwall - but now we realize the extent of the traffic we feel this is likely to be just too much driving.

We had also thought about trying to go to Stonehenge. But over dinner , we decide that we are really much more interested in seeing Plymouth and the Victory than looking through the rain at some old rocks.

We are surprised to find in the morning that daylight saving has started. Thank heavens for self adjusting times on electronic devices! Even so, we are still jet lagged enough to find it easy to be on the road early - it beats the traffic!

It is another windy, rainy and frankly freezing day. But we aren't the only ones at the Portsmouth naval yard when it opens for business.

The Victory is just like walking through the pages of Hornblower for us. We have lots of chats with the guides posted over the ship. One even lets us pretend to fire a gun. Most of the cannons are fiberglass replicas, but there are a few genuine cannon on the ship if you know where to look.

We also tour the M33 - a WW1 gunship that was at Gallipoli. The Mary Rose was having work done - so not available for viewing. But we went to the exhibit and saw the bits we could. There was much more than we could fit into our visit. Luckily also lovely tea rooms and an antique shop filled with military bric a brac including an ejector seat.

Now I can get Mike oldfield's Portsmouth out of an endless loop in my head...


Then it was on to Plymouth. The hotel that Alison, our travel agent, had found for us was a beauty! The Duke of Cornwall, originally opened around 150  years ago. A fabulous gothic building with a gorgeous caste iron staircase. All the rooms are individually decorated. Ours had yellow hydrangea patterned wallpaper and a luxurious blue and yellow carpet.

The weather was still truly horrible and the hotel had a very pleasant lounge area. - so we ended up ordering food at the bar and having a pleasant night watching the rain beating on the windows. Luckily the storm seemed to blow itself out overnight and we woke up to blue skies.

We hadn't really expected much of Plymouth, so it was a pleasant surprise in the morning to find it was a really pretty town. The Barbican area close to the harbour has lots of narrow cobbled streets and the harbour itself is really attractive. There is also a park called the hoe - providing lovely views as well as endless opportunities for double entendres. This is supposedly where Sir Francis Drake was playing bowls when he spotted the Spanish Armada.

In the afternoon I nagged Grant into driving us out of town to visit Drakes residence - Buckland abbey. It was originally an abbey - sold off by Henry VIII to Richard Granville. Mr Granville turned out to be a pioneer in church conversions and remodeled the building to be a family manor. He ran into some of the classic problems that home renovation show addicts such as myself are familiar with - too high ceilings, awkward shaped rooms. Anyway - after establishing that any of these little difficulties could be overcome with the application of money - he eventually a sold it on to Sir Francis.

We finished the day with a delicious dinner at the river cottage cafe - which Grant had booked for me that morning. Yummo! Simple food done well. We started with a tasting plate - sausages with hummus, baked Camembert and spinach and nutmeg gratin. Then for mains Grant had whiting and chips and I had salmon with lentils. Dessert was chocolate pudding for Grant with coffee sauce and sticky toffee pudding for me. All delicious.