Postcard from Portsmouth and Southsea

I realise that I have been back from holiday for 2 weeks and as yet I haven't written a proper blogpost about it as I've been so busy! Time to start rectifying that... it could take sometime and I'll spread them out...

So first up we had to catch a ferry overnight from Portsmouth so we spent the afternoon exploring some of what the city has on offer. My mum had pre-booked tickets to see the Mary Rose at the Historic Dockyard and we had time before our slot to look around the rest of the docks:

HMS Warrior 

There is certainly plenty to fill a day with lots to see and touch:

There is a free apprentice museum which shows how the dockyard trained its workers throughout the centuries. My children enjoyed testing how a block and tackle made a huge difference:

You have to purchase tickets to access each of the ships so this time we only got to see HMS Victory from the outside:

There was no time to get bored and lots of fun photo opportunities:

Both my children knew who this magnificent chap was at the start of the Mary Rose exhibition:

They did find it hard to see that these planks were once a magnificent warship:

They found the artefacts (especially the cannons) much easier to relate to:

I found it very moving to see the bones of some of the tragic seamen that went down with the ship when she sank in the Solent:

I remember watching on Blue Peter when they raised the Mary Rose from the sea bed. I will be back when they have finished the preservation and she is more visible to the visiting public.

 We then moved on to the Spinnaker Tower:

The males in the family chose not to go up the tower but the rest of us enjoyed the stunning views:

The only one brave enough to try out the glass floor was my daughter. Bless her she was shaking when I took this shot:

After dinner on Gunwharf Quays we headed out to Southsea a we had a couple more hours to fill. There is a great park just behind the beach so we all enjoyed the time there:

The grass was very parched

It was good to have a playground for the children to let off steam:

We also got the chance to watch the Isle of Wight hovercraft setting off from the beach:

And my daughter made a pebble monster:

And of course nothing tops throwing pebbles into the sea:

Finally we went to the docks to await boarding our ferry at about 10 PM. We were treated to a lovely sunset for our last night on English soil for a fortnight:

More to come of what we got up to in Brittany...