There were some impressive, open courtyard areas as well as a few squares dotted around. The tall buildings that lined the often-twisting streets of Reus helped provide plenty of shade and made the place seem friendlier, more organic, less planned. We enjoyed our time there and the museum itself was a decent distraction (as well as a way to get out of the sun for a while). Back outside my eyes were constantly drawn to the different architectural styles although the very Mediterranean penchant for balconies on all the buildings was ever-present.

One of the nicer things about being an obvious tourist in places is that I find it easier to take photographs of people than I do back home. Probably due to the time of day that we were visiting there weren’t a huge number of people around in Reus but I fired off a few shots anyway, including one of my brother who phoned to let us know he and his wife would be joining us for some shopping and a drink at a bar after we’d been there for an hour.

The nice surprise – in addition to the weather which was fresh but bright and clear – was that the architecture of the buildings along Hastings seafront was really attractive. There were several examples of Art Deco design to be seen which, after brutalist, is my favourite style of architecture in use. We don’t see very much Art Deco at home, quite likely because anything that was there was probably bombed during the war, so it’s always lovely to see some around. On top of that, Hastings had a pier and a quick look around the various places we’ve travelled to in and around England will soon show you that we do like a nice pier.

We started with a walk of the grounds of the place in order to take advantage of the good weather which we suspected might change. The landscape gardens of Upton Court were wonderful, sloping down from the main house and including a swimming pool, a lake, and a walled garden area below the line of sight of the long lawn. The pool in particular looked very nice with its steps descending into the water at one end.

The decor inside Upton House was in keeping with a 1920s aesthetic which meant there were lots of art deco period pieces here and there. Outside brutalism it’s my favourite type of design so this was lovely to see and made a nice change from the older periods that make up the bulk of trust properties of this size. The bathroom was a true marvel to see with its reflective, metallic surfaces. I’d probably have to say that Upton House is one of the most memorable buildings I’ve explored in the United Kingdom and it’s one I should make the effort to pop up to Warwickshire and visit again one day.

The first day we paid a visit to Reston was on a Sunday, just after we’d had a tour of Orbital and got to see some satellites being built and prepared on sound stages designed to simulate launch noise and vibration conditions. While my sister-in-law’s company were dealing with communications satellites some of the other builds we saw included the Cygnus spacecraft that perform part of the regular run of supplies and removal of waste from the International Space Station. Following our private tour (no photos for obvious reasons) we headed into Reston for lunch and so that we could experience what it was like to be in an American bar watching American Football (before actually experiencing the activity at first hand when we’d later hit Massachusetts).

We travelled to America in November so one of the first things we spotted in Reston was an ice rink that we assumed was just there for the holiday period. An outdoors rink prior to this point was something I’d never seen outside a movie before so it was great to see. In recent years they’ve started appearing towards the end of the year locally too, though, so it wouldn’t be quite the wow moment these days.

Reston itself was very clean and very typical of what we expected from an American city but in a reasonably small town; very straight roads, zones for specific activities. The reason for this was simply that Reston was a fairly young town and had been planned in that way rather than evolving in the more natural way that we see towns and cities here in Europe. Whether it was because it was a Sunday or whether it was because of the time of year or whether it was because, being planned and being American, people didn’t really live anywhere near where things actually were (they do like getting around in their cars an awful lot over there) I can’t say for sure but there was a very quiet, almost empty, wasted feel to the place. This is not necessarily a bad thing for a traveller to experience as any cultural difference is a welcome one but I’m not sure it’s a place I’d like to live in. We felt the same way about Washington DC when we were there but to contrast that I absolutely loved New York.

Architecturally, there were some lovely pieces to feast the eye on in Reston: some very American-looking diners and signs and a building with more than a hint of art deco styling grabbed my attention most of all.

The bar we were heading to was Clyde’s. This was a place known to my wife’s sister and her boyfriend and somewhere that the guy who’d taken us around Orbital knew as well and who we had arranged to meet there for drinks. While the place had a sit-down restaurant area it was at the bar that we located ourselves and where we enjoyed some beers and some food in that very magical American way where the bar staff seem to remember around ten people’s different orders before fetching them flawlessly in sequence and coping with interruptions of new orders too. No idea how they manage it. We had a few chats with some of the locals once our accents were overheard and the most interesting conversation was when someone at the bar asked what the time was and I showed my phone to him. Apparently, seeing the time written in 24-hour clock notation format was the most incredible thing ever and a small group of people gathered to stare at the readout and check their own phones to confirm that they’d never seen such a mystical way of telling the time. Weird how the tiniest cultural differences can be the most memorable. Football was watched on TV (the bar supported the Redskins because of its proximity to Washington), a good time was had by all, and it was here that we were served our very first Baby Guinness cocktail (with Patrón XO Cafe), a drink we make at home to this day because it’s just so very good.

We returned to Reston towards the end of our stay in Virginia. We hadn’t planned this part of the trip but the timing was such that our holiday in America coincided with Thanksgiving and the following day they held a parade in the town. You can see photos of the parade here: Reston, VA, Thanksgiving Parade 2011.

As we’d arrived early to stake out a spot and we would hang around for a while afterwards in order that the majority of people could pile into their cars and disperse first this gave me a lot of opportunity to just shoot some people gathering or wandering around the streets of Reston. On the walk towards the parade route from where we’d parked our car we passed through the town square park where some abstract art sculptures caught my eye against the crisp, clear November sky.

From there on (parade itself notwithstanding) it was mainly the people who had come to Reston who grabbed my attention. Taking photos of people doing absolutely normal activities on the streets is something I used to do quite a lot (and obviously did back in 2011) but my focus has definitely shifted more to the travel locations these days. It’s interesting to me, looking back at photos like this, to see how much enjoyment I can get from a snapshot of a mainly meaningless moment of time.

All of these photos were taken with my 100mm L-series prime lens as well which is a lens not ideally suited for street photography but which does produce some lovely shots nonetheless. Being a tourist at a crowded event like the Reston parade obviously lends itself well to taking these sorts of photos and it’s something I might try to drag myself back into; to be able to capture both the essence of the place as well as the people makes for the best travel photography in my opinion.

We awoke with the sunrise, docked in Los Angeles cruise port. The port looked quiet but strangely welcoming in the early morning golden glow and long shadows. Strangely welcoming? Well, this was Los Angeles, America. We’d not visited this coast of America before but our experiences of flying into the east of the country on several occasions had not left us with the greatest of impressions of the country – surliness, huge queues, casual racism towards other travellers and our friend; that sort of thing – and, of course, this was 2019, Trump’s America, a place that absolutely hates every foreigner who’s not a white supremacist with more money than sense. We were not particularly looking forward to clearing either the port customs and security or the airport customs and security later on in the day but sandwiched between those events was a debark tour we could hopefully enjoy.

So how was getting through customs and security at Los Angeles cruise port?

Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. Couldn’t have been better. I know you might be tempted to switch on your Sarcasm-O-Meter there just to scan this paragraph but, really, there’s no need. Deadly serious. It was great.

Thanks to our morning debark tour and desire for Princess Cruises to get us off as quickly as possible, see the sights without hitting too much traffic, and dump us at the airport without running into problems they’d need to resolve (because we booked the tour and flights with them) we were not just amongst the first people off the ship but my wife and I were literally the first passengers off Star Princess. Down the gangway to the port we were greeted by a friendly port worker who made sure we were careful of the forklifts buzzing around before we headed into the tented area for customs and security. Here was another smiling face, quick question or two, short chat and a laugh, and we were done. Found our cases, found the bus for the tour, and just waited for the rest of our group to file in behind us. We were impressed with our first minutes in Los Angeles.

Venice Canals, Los Angeles, California

It was an uneventful, not terribly interesting drive from the port to the first of our stops with hardly any of that famous Los Angeles traffic to mention either, a benefit of this debark tour taking place on a Saturday morning. Our guide offered to simply stop and tell us about the area of Venice Canals – where we were – or we could go for a quick walk through it and meet up with the bus at the end. There seemed to be a distinct look of shock and disappointment on the guide’s face when we all said we wanted the walk. I’m not sure exactly what she was expecting or what the response to that offer had been on previous tours she’d led but she certainly seemed crestfallen to discover she’d have to get off and walk with us too. We didn’t pay the money for a tour just to gaze at sights from a bus and even had everyone else been content to stay where they were we’d have gotten off and made them all wait for us regardless. We’re like that, you know.

There followed a fairly brisk walk around the canals which started out as one big group and rapidly became one long line as those of us with cameras kept stopping to take pictures. It was hard not to; the clear blue sky of the morning, no wind, and subsequent mirror-like surface of the water produced too many opportunities for pleasing-looking photos to pass up.

It’s entirely possible that our guide was talking a little more about the area while she walked ahead with the leaders in our group but none of that drifted back to where I was. Here, then, is what the internet says about the Venice Canals of Los Angeles: the canals, obviously, are artificial, having been built early in the twentieth century as part of a plan to recreate the look and feel of the canals associated with Venice in Italy. We’ve never been to Venice in Italy but we have seen photos and can honestly say that the attempt to recreate that look and feel here in America was an abject failure. But they’re still nice. Okay, that’s not fair. The canals in Los Angeles these days are only really connected with the ones of the early 1900s by name alone. The originals may once have resembled their Italian counterparts but the canals fell into disrepair and many were filled in and turned into roads as Americans rejected boating and gentle walks in favour of a love affair with traffic jams. It takes all sorts.

After a lot of dealing and double-dealing and committees (and probably threats with weaponry if American TV has taught us anything) new canals were opened in the 1990s and the area became a tourist attraction and a very desirable location to live for the insanely rich who don’t mind strangers walking past their windows and photographing them at all hours of the day and night. It takes all sorts.

There was a quirkiness to the historic Venice Canals area that seemed a little forced to my cynical mind, but artificial quirkiness is okay too and it all added to the pleasing character present. This was evident in the architecture of the buildings – that uniformity you associate with American housing was nowhere to be seen, but that’s probably a privilege of the almighty dollar at work – and with artwork in places, the presence of bird-shaped boats, and a book exchange. An upturned boat in poor condition was potentially a damning statement about society from the residents – Behold! We, the wealthy owners of houses in the Venice Canals area of Los Angeles, see this sign of decay and do nothing! Nothing! – or an artistic homage to the classic half-submerged shopping trolley you’d find in a British canal or maybe simply the victim of gang warfare between the humans and cormorants, the latter group of which was casually flaunting their victory as we strolled through.

The weather conditions were perfect for a 10-minute morning walk around the Venice Canals. Its appeal as a tourist destination if we were staying in Los Angeles seemed a little limited but it made for some pleasing views.

Santa Monica Pier

Our bus then took us along the coastline and deposited us at the place where we would have free time to explore. Our guide told us what time to be back and pointed out the two main attractions of the area: a pedestrianised shopping area running parallel to the beach a few roads back or Santa Monica Pier. I know we all have different priorities in life but for us this Los Angeles debark tour was a chance to see some of the sights of the city ahead of our flight back to the UK so it was to the pier we headed first. Besides, we are quite fond of a pier, in case you didn’t know.

Santa Monica Pier is really two piers with the narrower one being the longest and oldest, opening in 1909, and the shorter, wider one with the funfair on it opening seven years later. Being sited in the heart of movie-making in America it’s unsurprising to learn that the pier has featured in a huge range of films and TV shows, with the Forrest Gump-inspired restaurant chain of the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company taking advantage of its connection to the location and having a venue there. That and the marker to signify the western end of Route 66 made for a lot of photo opportunities for other tourists to the spot during our visit.

The funfair is called Pacific Park and is mostly notable for its ferris wheel which is solar-powered. We don’t do amusement rides half as much as we should typically because we only tend to visit these sorts of places when I’m laden with camera equipment and I have a natural aversion to leaving it in the hands of the thieving carnies who run amusement parks in my mind while we’re off on a roller coaster ride. That is a terrible slur against carnies but luckily for me no carnies can read or use the internet so they’ll never learn of it.

We headed down to the farthest end of the pier for the views out to sea and back towards land because that’s what piers are for. If you’re after the toilet and don’t have time to strip down and pretend you’re wading in the sea while you release your bodily fluids into it then you’ll be pleased to know that there are public conveniences on the pier here.

Heading back along the pier we were intrigued by a crowd gathering so joined them for a look. This turned out to be one of those street troupes performing acrobatics then dragging members of the public in to keep them from leaving before they’d been fleeced of money. We stayed on the fringes of the entertained audience where we could ensure no participation and keep an eye out for anything untowards that may be taking place (there wasn’t; 99% of those warnings you receive about people working crowds when they’re distracted are just garbage).

That marked the end of our short time on Santa Monica Pier so we left it and headed inland a few blocks in order to see what we could find in the Third Street Promenade.

Third Street Promenade

The very first part of Third Street Promenade we walked through was a circular mall that, because there were very few people around and because it was fairly enclosed, I didn’t take any photos within. I wished I had taken pictures and paid a little more attention to the space because I hadn’t realised that this was Santa Monica Place, originally one of Frank Gehry‘s designs although subsequently renovated by another architectural firm.

The Third Street Promenade dates back to the 1960s when three blocks were pedestrianised and named the Santa Monica Mall. The present day incarnation with its new name follows modernisation and redevelopment in the late 1980s. There were some fabulous-looking styles of building along its length with some art deco designs standing out.

The most obvious attraction for the eyes was a public art piece titled The Dinosaurs Of Santa Monica. Added as part of the late 80s redesign of the area, this artwork consists of topiary-covered, stainless steel and copper fountains in the shapes of dinosaurs and we could see that they were a hit with young children as we walked the promenade. And me. Who doesn’t like dinosaurs vomiting out water?

We didn’t see any shops along the Third Street Promenade interesting enough to entice us inside but I dare say that there was plenty there for certain types of shoppers and if we’d had more time then we might have forced some browsing time upon ourselves. We reached the end of the promenade and the marker pole indicating we were on Wilshere Boulevard, having passed some more public art pieces along the way, so we decided to loop back towards Santa Monica Beach in order to return to our meeting point for the bus.

Palisades Park

Along the sandstone clifftop overlooking the Pacific Coast Highway and Pacific Ocean, between Santa Monica Pier and Wilshere Boulevard (and many more blocks beyond that) lies Palisades Park. It was through this area that we slowly wound our way back. The very first thing to photograph was a statue of the person from whom Santa Monica gained its name. My Catholic upbringing and education by monks hadn’t furnished me with any background information on Saint Monica at all but the internet tells me she was also known as Monica of Hippo and I think that gives me everything I need.

In addition to the lovely views out to sea there was an abundance of flora and fauna although I couldn’t possibly tell you what most of them were. Palm trees and squirrels is about as good as you’re going to get from me.

A memorial to veterans of the army, navy, marines, air force, and coast guard was simple but highly effective.

And so we finally found some shade under a tree near where other passengers on our debark tour were gathering and waited for our bus to return. Joggers jogged past, homeless people slept on the grass, helicopters scanned the waters off the beach in search of kaiju.

Obviously, we only saw a small part of Los Angeles and a pretty affluent part at that, and for a short amount of time too, but we’d not expected to like what we saw as much as we did. Our experiences of big cities in America to this point has been that they are okay to visit but we wouldn’t want to live there, but Los Angeles felt far more welcoming and far more appealing.

Departure

With everyone back on board and nobody late – cruise ships might wait for you but airplanes certainly won’t so that probably accounts for that – we were then driven to Los Angeles International Airport. The first terminal at which the bus pulled up at was the one for us and, it turned out, only us. We were apparently the only people flying with Virgin. We grabbed our cases and headed inside with that tiny little grip inside the stomach as we waited to see what hell would await us in our attempt to leave the country.

So how was getting through check-in and security at Los Angeles airport?

Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. Couldn’t have been better. I know you might be tempted to pick up your Sarcasm-O-Meter from where you’ve dropped it in shock earlier just to scan this paragraph but, really, again, there’s no need. Deadly serious. It was great.

Check-in people were smiling, happy, wonderfully efficient. Security people were joking, having a laugh and a chat with everyone. And despite the large amount of people trying to get through what was a rather cramped pre-security area it was all organised as well as possible, processed incredibly quickly, and we came through into the duty-free and restaurants area with grins on our faces. A chalk-and-cheese comparison with our experiences in Washington D.C. and New York.

With a while until our flight we decided to grab something to eat before we finally headed home and an establishment called Barney’s Beanery seemed to fit our tastes best. It’s an airport restaurant so, yes, the prices aren’t great, but we couldn’t fault the quality, loved the fact that they had locally-brewed ales available, and our waitress Uneeda was absolutely fabulous. On top of all that, as we were shown to our table we discovered we were sitting next to Patricia, a solo traveller with whom we’d been on excursions with aboard Star Princess and with whom we’d shared many drinks with in bars on the ship during the cruise. She was overjoyed to see us too and it was a lovely finish to our time in America and our trip as a whole.

We try to get debark tours if we can when we take cruises as it extends the holiday just that little bit more and if it’s a place we’ve not visited before then it makes sense to get a feel for the location for future planning. This Venice Canals and Santa Monica disembarkation excursion did a fantastic job of giving us a final, positive memory of both the trip as a whole and of Los Angeles specifically. We saw some attractive areas and there was plenty of time for shopping if that’s the sort of thing that appeals to you as a traveller.

This concludes the cruise travelogues for our Star Princess cruise from Chile to Los Angeles in March 2019.

Breakfast out of the way, we left the hotel and headed south(ish) to take a walk through Plymouth Hoe. The Hoe is the public park on top of the (surprisingly to us) rocky mound that dominates the seafront of Plymouth and is probably best known as being the setting for the very likely untrue game of bowls that Sir Francis Drake had while waiting for the tide to turn so he could set sail with the fleet to take on the Spanish Armada. These days the Hoe is the home to a number of war memorials (including one by the architect Sir Robert Lorimer that is one of a set of three, with one of the others being situated in our home city of Portsmouth), houses a statue of Sir Francis Drake, includes the landmark lighthouse of Smeaton’s Tower, and provides fabulous views out over Plymouth Sound.

As we stood there, taking in the view in the pleasantly warm and clear day (the last such day weather-wise for our break as it would turn out) we suddenly heard a man shouting at us. Initial thoughts that we might be trespassing or taking a photo of something we shouldn’t proved to be wrong as it turned out he’d spotted my camera and wanted to know if I had a telephoto lens on it. I did have a telephoto lens with me for this trip but I’d decided that I’d leave it at the hotel today and use my workhorse lens, the 24-105mm instead. The reason this person had wanted to know was because he wanted to draw our attention to something we’d not spotted while gazing out across the water, that being a submarine. A telephoto lens, of course, would have given me the chance to see far more detail of the naval vessel but I had to suffice with wider shots instead. This was only the second time we’d seen a submarine cruising on the surface of the water, the first being several years earlier in Chile at Puerto Montt, and it was great to be reminded of that trip.

Smeaton’s Tower is probably the most prominent landmark on Plymouth Hoe and it’s certainly something we noticed on our first evening from the water on our harbour boat trip. The tower is not a working lighthouse but it once formed the upper part of the Eddystone Lighthouse which was in operation for over a hundred years from 1759 on the submerged Eddystone Rocks fourteen kilometres south of Cornwall. John Smeaton, the civil engineer tasked with the construction of the original lighthouse, used hydraulic lime to set concrete underwater and form the base of the navigational aid, and it was only erosion of the underlying rocks that necessitated the building of a replacement beacon and the deconstruction then subsequent repositioning of the tower in Plymouth as a memorial.

Tinside Lido was the next sight to greet our eyes as we progressed as far forward on the mainland as we could, and what a lovely sight it was too. We were lucky to see it on such a pleasant day, to see the cyan of the shallow pool contrasting with the deep blue of the sea, but it was the design that was most appealing. A lot of lidos were built in the UK in the 1930s and were pretty conventional, rectangular affairs, but Plymouth’s 1935 lido incorporates the fabulous curves and straight lines of the Art Deco movement and benefits from its location at the base of the surrounding cliffs with views out over Plymouth Sound. Portsmouth has a lido, too, but here’s an area where Plymouth beats our home city hands down.

Our walk along Plymouth seafront continued in an anticlockwise direction and took us past the imposing fortifications of the Royal Citadel. We’d wanted to take a look inside but it wasn’t the Covid restrictions in place that stopped us; rather, it was the requirement that all visitors have photo ID. For my wife this presented a problem since she doesn’t drive and the only photographic ID she has is her passport which didn’t make the trip along the coast with us on account of us not needing to leave the country. A stupid barrier to visiting a historical site, in my opinion. A small bit of history, anyway, since I like to share knowledge: the citadel sits on the spot of a former fort that had been erected in the sixteenth century. The English Civil War of the seventeenth century saw Plymouth take the side of the ultimately victorious Parliamentarians, during which it was besieged for several years without falling, but following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 construction of the Royal Citadel took place and the cannons were positioned facing both out to sea and towards the city on land, supposedly as a warning not to oppose the Crown again.

Our path took us sloping downwards back towards Sutton Harbour where we’d enjoyed some time on both of the previous evenings thanks to its attractive views and abundance of pubs.

The Mayflower Steps area of Plymouth includes a rather odd sculpture, known locally as the Barbican Prawn despite clearly not being a prawn at all. Its actual name is Leviathan and it was unveiled in 1996 during modernisation works along this stretch of the waterfront. Designed by Brian Fell, Leviathan includes an angler fish’s head with lobster claws, the fin of a John Dory and the tail of a plesiosaur, finished off with the feet of a cormorant, because of course it does. We liked it.

It wasn’t all just aimless wandering on this day of walking along Plymouth’s seafront; we actually had a tiny, tiny plan, and that was to pay a visit to the National Marine Aquarium. We are fond of an aquarium when we travel around the world. Plymouth has hosted an aquarium since 1888 but the National Marine Aquarium was built and opened in the mid-1990s during the Barbican modernisation works and it is the UK’s largest aquarium. Arranged around specific zones and featuring some huge tanks to house the thousands of creatures this was a lovely place to visit. I could sit and stare at an aquarium tank of fish swimming for hours and fortunately several tanks had seating in front of them to allow just that. Obviously, we didn’t spend hours here, though. This is definitely something worth hitting if you ever find yourself in or around Plymouth.

This wouldn’t be the only aquarium we’d visit during our West Country short break as Weymouth, where we’d be off to the day after this gentle amble around Plymouth, also housed one and, as I’ve mentioned, we are a sucker for them.

It was the afternoon by now so we grabbed ourselves some liquid refreshment from The Ship (where we’d paid a visit previously; see: A Few Plymouth Pubs) then hunted down a shop we’d spotted overnight in the city, a wine and spirits specialist called Barrel & Still. Fabulous range of alcohol for sale plus the ability to have some free samples too. Which we did.

Not wanting to lug our bottled purchases around we decided to head as directly as possible back to our hotel to drop them off. This took us in a westwards direction along Royal Parade, more-or-less the main road through the centre of Plymouth and one lined with some sights of interest. First up was the Minister Church of Saint Andrew. Externally, this church looks the same as it did in 1500 even though it was bombed during the war and required significant rebuilding in the years afterwards.

The two buildings that really leaped out at me because of my fondness for architecture were the House of Fraser and the Pearl Assurance buildings either side of the precinct bisecting Royal Parade. The House of Fraser building was formerly the Dingles department store and it was the first building to be designed as part of the complete redevelopment of Plymouth after the war. There is an absolutely fascinating PDF that explains the architectural visions and plans for the city – Plymouth: Vision of a Modern City – and if you’ve any interest in town-planning or architecture then I can’t recommend that enough, but since you’re you and I know you well enough to know you don’t have that sort of attention span then I’ll give the short version here: Scottish modernist architect Thomas Tait, more widely known for his Art Deco works, at the end of his career was brought in as design consultant for the new plans for Plymouth in the late 1940s and produced the Dingles store as well as associating with designs for several other buildings. Individual architects and building owners were free to create their own designs within the style guidelines so as to produce something not strictly uniform but that fitted together; new buildings with a sense that they’ve stood for far longer. You can see some modernist, brutalist elements in these buildings despite the classical decorative pieces and use of Portland Stone. It’s all a wonderful testament to the changing times and rebuilding for the future taking place post-war.

There were plenty more buildings encompassing brutalism, modernism, and Art Deco styles to gaze at on the walk back too.

Finally, there were some public pieces of art to admire. Or not. I like street art and I know that art is subjective but what we saw in Plymouth was some of the most uninspiring work. It felt like someone had broken out some oversized set squares and geometric templates and just filled in the spaces. Personal opinion, but yuk. The somewhat abstract sculpture was more to my liking. This was the seven-metre-high bronze called Messenger by Joseph Hillier; apparently a woman crouching and inspired by an actor preparing for a role, this more closely resembled an American Footballer in a three-point stance at the line of scrimmage to us.

We dropped off items at the hotel, checked that my wife’s niggling injury wasn’t too problematic for walking some more, then headed off again, this time southwest from our hotel as there was an area of land near the water there that we hadn’t checked over which might have been hiding a fabulous pub. It wasn’t. In fact this turned out to be uninteresting as we approached so we veered south to the seafront once more to see what might be of interest down there and to see how the sun might affect the look of the shoreline as the sun started to sink towards the horizon.

We spotted a fairly lively-looking place by the waterfront actually called The Waterfront but there was a queue of people waiting to be seated so the option of enjoying the sunset with a drink evaded us. However, we also saw what appeared to be a security guard in front of an interesting-looking piece of sculpture in iron resembling a block-type figure staring out to sea. We didn’t know it at the time but this was LOOK II, a work by Sir Antony Gormley.

We found an empty bench and enjoyed the Plymouth seafront view for a while in the warm, early evening sunshine. We were quite surprised by the number of people swimming in the water and spent quite some time being entertained by humans and dogs leaping from the stone pier near us into the sea.

With dining and drinking options looking sparse along this part of the coastline we decided that we’d head back around to Sutton Harbour again where we were certain we’d find something. This gave us a chance to see the Belvedere Wedding Cake (to give it its local name) up close. A belvedere is a type of open summer house and this three-tiered building was constructed in 1891. The site on which it stands was formerly a camera obscura offering views over Plymouth Sound, below which there was a bullring (where bulls were tied up and baited by dogs for entertainment and to tenderise the meat; indeed, butchers were fined if they killed bulls without baiting them).

With the sun at our backs we retraced some of the day’s earlier walking route along the seafront, enjoying the views down to the rocky shore and the people taking advantage of the warmth to bathe or swim.

Our last meal in Plymouth was at the Pier Masters House. It’s a very nice-looking building on the waterfront with plenty of seating outside and in and we elected to dine inside as the sun was disappearing from the sky by this time. A warm welcome was sadly the best that can be said of the experience with service being perfunctory (and barely even that when it came time to pay the bill) and the fish being disappointingly overcooked and dry.

We grabbed a couple of final drinks near the harbour and called it a night.

That brings our stay in Plymouth to an end. It was certainly not what we were expecting geographically but there were lots of historical and architectural elements we enjoyed a lot and we wouldn’t be averse to visiting again when this pandemic is under control and life is a bit more normal.

The following morning we would be relocating along the coast to Weymouth for three days as part of our West Country break and we’d be making a stop in Sidmouth to break the drive up which will be covered in the next post in this travelogue series.

The view from our hotel window right on the seafront was very nice first thing in the morning. Mostly blue skies, calm-looking water, people out taking their dogs for walks along the promenade and across the sand; but the wind was pretty strong and cold and we knew that the forecast was for the conditions to change quite significantly.

Breakfast done, hoodies on, we headed off northwards along Weymouth beach, one eye on the increasing cloud cover and another always looking for something to take a photo of. I was in full Marty Feldman mode. One of the first things to catch our attention was a crow trying to extract the inhabitant of a shell from its protective layer. It was doing that bird thing where they pick the shell up, flap into the air, then drop it to crack it open, only it wasn’t flying high enough and the shell was resolutely remaining intact. We offered some words of encouragement and tried to instruct the bird that it needed more altitude but our efforts were in vain as it transpired that the corvid didn’t understand English. Ridiculous. Coming over here to our beaches and not even speaking the language. Confident, however, that it would learn – they are fabulously smart after all – and aware that we were getting odd stares from people out and about that conveyed a mix of confusion and suspicion at our gesturing and talking to a bird on a beach, we pressed on.

It’s practically impossible to walk along the seafront at Weymouth and not be struck by the sight of the Jubilee Clock Tower. This is on account of it being revoltingly ugly. Standing on a base of Portland Stone and constructed from wrought iron in 1888 to commemorate Queen Victoria‘s Golden Jubilee the bold colour scheme was applied in the 1920s during the terrible taste famine that blighted the south coast of England.

From something garish (but still lovely in its own way) to something undeniably beautiful next with the sight of the Pier Bandstand right on the water’s edge. Observant people and possibly even you might have already realised that what’s pictured clearly isn’t a pier and clearly isn’t a bandstand but nobody ever questions why we still refer to people in parliament as politicians when diabolically duplicitous detritus is what they all are so here we are. In fact, as you’ve probably guessed, this structure used to extend out to sea and on that pier there was a bandstand but neither now remain. The pier was constructed just ahead of the outbreak of war in the late 1930s and incorporates Art Deco design like many similar seaside attractions around the UK’s coast but with some early modernist construction techniques. Sadly, those techniques weren’t robust enough to withstand nature and the test of time. In its heyday Weymouth’s pier hosted dances, concerts, wrestling, roller skating, and Miss Weymouth contests but following the decision to demolish the pier the remainder of the building that stands today is home to an amusement arcade and an Italian restaurant. We would be visiting it later in the day.

The sand of the beach farther south had given way to shingle at this point but it was no less an attractive, typically traditional, British seaside to walk along, or be blown along as was the case for us. Buildings along the shoreline had all the elements of Victorian and Edwardian resorts you’d expect to see on vintage postcards.

We knew we’d reached the point along the beach at which we’d need to turn inland once we hit the stone jetty. Rather than being protection for the shore this stone outcrop actually protects an outlet of water that runs under the beach and nearby roads. I used the spot to snap a few photos of some of the cruise ships anchored in Weymouth Bay – you know me and my love of cruise ships – but the promised rain was clearly getting extremely close now and the darkening clouds rolling in looked ominous against the bright colours of the seafront chalets.

Our first stop of the day was at SEA LIFE Weymouth to give it its apparently official name, but I’ll be slipping and referring to it as “the Sea Life Centre” on occasion (or even just Sealife Centre) throughout picture captions and in this account of our day simply because I have an aversion to putting things in all capitals for no obvious reason and, to me, all aquariums are Sea Life Centres as the first one we ever visited in Portsmouth was named that so the name’s stuck. Incidentally, the one in Portsmouth is now called Blue Reef but we still call it the Sea Life Centre much to the annoyance of the manager when I mentioned it to him several years ago.

Getting into the town’s aquarium was entertaining. We’d needed to pre-book tickets and an arrival time and we turned up just as that slot – and indeed the aquarium itself – opened for the day. There was a small, socially-distanced queue ahead of us and entry to the building could only be done upon a satisfactory temperature test using a digital infrared thermometer. I’ve talked about infrared thermometers and our quite surprising experience with them where my wife’s concerned on our arrival in Weymouth (have a quick read of the opening paragraphs of our First Evening in Weymouth to get up to speed there) but the short recap of that is that they’re useless, people don’t know how to use them, and they have big problems with my wife.

Well…

The young man with the thermometer was standing in place, pointing his gun at people’s heads, glancing at it, nodding, then allowing people to shuffle forward. It was slow-going because the timed, pre-booked ticket system still seemed to involve an awful lot of faffing inside the building but it was gradually progressing and while the rain had finally arrived on the scene it was thankfully little more than a misty drizzle at this point. It was our turn.

The gun was pointed at my head. The trigger was depressed. The man glanced down, nodded, then turned to my wife.

The gun was pointed at her head. The trigger was depressed. The man glanced down, frowned, then tried again. Then again. Then from closer. Then from a little bit back. Then pointed it at her wrist. Then tried again on her forehead. He tried it on me again and it apparently worked fine. Back to my wife. The trigger was depressed. The bottom of the thermometer suddenly opened up and the batteries ejected onto the ground. The batteries were retrieved, rubbed together for luck, reinserted, and the thermometer was tried again. Nothing on my wife.

“I’m just going to assume you’re okay,” he said nervously, looking at us and the queue behind us that was growing with every second in the strengthening rain.

And that’s the story of how we discovered my wife has a built-in infrared thermometer electronic warfare system.

As you can almost see from the map of Sea Life Weymouth above the exhibits at the attraction are set in zones of interest and on our visit, because of all the Covid precautions in place, there was a one-way system in operation. That system couldn’t be entirely followed because some of the spots double-backed on themselves and we ended up looping around on a couple of occasions anyway in order to escape a particularly noisy section occupied by screaming or shouting kids in the hope that a second wander through might be more peaceful. The enclosed spaces with hard walls and glass surfaces do amazing things with echos of children’s lungs, but not good amazing things.

The star of the Sea Life Centre for us was the octopus. It’s no secret that we’re drawn to intelligence – it’s why we’re together and why we despise most of humanity, after all – and you don’t even have to read all the accounts of these fantastic creatures working with tools or escaping their tanks to sense the thinking going on beyond those fascinating eyes.

Seeing a fish swimming upside down immediately made me think that either something was wrong with it or with Earth’s gravitational pull localised to that tank in the aquarium. A quick discussion with my wife as to which was more likely concluded it probably was the fish after all which was disappointing from a major physics discovery perspective. As it turned out, neither was correct, which just goes to show why arguments of the type Is It X Or Is It Y? are inherently flawed. Lionfish have strong control over their swim bladder and swimming upside down is perfectly normal behaviour for them. I mean, it’s still a bit weird and freaks out the other fish, but it is at least normal.

Hey, Ted, are you upside down or am I?

It’s me, Jim, don’t panic. Just floating on my back for a bit, looking at the world in a strange, new way.

Phew! Thought there might be a local problem with the gravitational vector strong enough to offset the effects of the fundamental interactive forces of nature for a second.

Nope. Just thinking about how if the surface of the water was really the ground.

Are you on something?

Sure am, Jim. High as a freaking kite.

Weymouth Sea Life Centre has not one but two species of penguin to gaze at (ideally with clothes pegs on your nose). The first of those is the Humboldt Penguin, a vulnerable species indigenous to northern Chile and Peru. A far-less-threatened species and therefore far-less-likely-to-be-seen species of penguin – at least outside its natural habitat – is the Fairy Penguin which is stupidly cute, but since it can typically be found in Australia is quite likely venomous or something. Quite why they were in Weymouth wasn’t clear but never rule out a lack of bar work during lockdown meaning they needed something else to do.

A couple of unusual attractions next. The Night and Day Experience recreates a coral reef across a full day cycle, incorporates some interactive elements, includes sea turtles (which my wife adores), and was mostly too dark to take any decent photos in. Other visitors’ children seemed to very much enjoy this area judging by the noise. Outside there was a Wetlands area (all the areas outside were wet by this time, but this was designed that way) which is there to encourage local species into the park. The pond and bushes should attract bees, birds, and butterflies, while the rusting car might persuade James May to nest.

Aquatic mammals were the next creatures to win our attention. We braved the spitty rain to stand and watch both seals and otters in their environments, the latter getting quite excited when they caught a glimpse of one of the employees at the Sea Life Centre, an indication that it may have been nearly time for food. It was interesting to observe that the seals seemed to be evolution saying “Let’s take a dog and put it in the water” while the otters were the result of a similar experiment with cats, yet in each case they behaved in the opposite manner to their land-based cousins with the laid-back attitude of the sea dogs and the irritatingly excitable attitude of the sea cats feeling completely wrong.

We almost left the aquarium at this point as it looked like the only zone we’d not explored – Castaway Bay; a splash zone for youngsters – didn’t have anything we’d want to see, but in the interests of completeness we decided at the last second to take a quick nose around it which was handy as that’s where we discovered the Rainforest area. There was a queue to get in because social distance markings were being observed by visitors but the narrowness of the entrance and the need of some people to stare at tanks for sometimes minutes at a time or to yell at little Bobby to get back and come look at the seaweed created a bottleneck. We waited patiently. Most people waited patiently. Some people barged through to see what the hold-up was and were duly and rightly beaten about the heads with sticks and told not to crowd or jump the queue. Or stared and tutted at. One of the two. I forget which.

For me, the stars of this final set of aquarium tanks to pass by were:

• Unicorn fish – Clearly the inspiration for a lot of psychedelic cartoon characters from the 1960s.
• Four-eyed fish – The unicorn fish may have had the nose but these are the nosy ones, ensuring they don’t miss any action above or below the surface of the water with their split eyes that can see in both air and water.
• Poison dart frogs – You have to love thinking about the microscopic evolutionary steps that led to this species of frog promoting the genes for “Screw this, I’m fabulous and I want people to see me!”

That brought our visit to Weymouth’s Sea Life Centre to an end. It was very good. This was the second aquarium we’d visited in a few days and if I had to compare then I’d say that Plymouth’s National Marine Aquarium was better for adults and older children with an eye towards education while Weymouth was far better for families and younger children in general. On a bright day and hopefully one devoid of global viruses running rampant it would be a great place to spend many hours.

This wasn’t a bright day. This was decidedly wet now. In fact, as we left the park the heavens really opened up. Luckily, SandWorld could barely be any closer to the aquarium so we were in and under shelter very quickly. This was very switfly a place we realised would likely also be quite lovely with good weather but it’s hard to get away from the fact that during our time there the general feeling was of something quite grim. The lack of colour probably had an impact. The sound of the rain tipping down onto the plastic overhead or the somewhat terrifying sound as the wind slammed into the sheeting or bent a nearby tree overhead to scratch along the roof also didn’t help. When you read those tales every Christmas of the people who visit local Winter Wonderland World attractions just so they can be quoted in newspapers saying “Our kids were expecting reindeers and igloos, not a shipping container with a bag of half-melted ice cubes suspended on string from the ceiling!” then there was just the merest hint of that about this place. Nature played a part, definitely, but the organisers could certainly look into making the site more appealing in these conditions.

There’s no disputing the quality of the artwork and intricacy in the details in making the sand sculptures, though, and many of the artists were working on them as we visited. With some families around it might have been nice if there was some indication of interaction or a look-up on occasion with a smile but since I own three t-shirts with variations of the phrase “Grumpy Bastard” on them and my wife invented the resting bitch face we really can’t comment too strongly on this. There were also some areas to play in the sand for kids and a shop selling anything even remotely sandy so since we didn’t catch it in its best light (I hope) I’d recommend it as worth a visit, especially if you’re planning on hitting the aquarium anyway.

That concluded the two main things we’d wanted to see on this day in Weymouth to an end but we still wanted to hit the museum that we’d failed to account for not being open the day before. That meant a trek all the way back along the beach – with a ten-minute shelter in some public gardens when the driving rain forced us and a couple of other people scurrying to limit just how drenched we were all getting – and since it was early afternoon we also took a minor detour to one of the bars we’d visited before, the Nautico Lounge, to grab a bite to eat and a drink. The museum is on the south side of the harbour and we timed our subsequent walk to it to perfection and got to see Weymouth’s bascule bridge opening to let some boats in and out.

Weymouth Museum is not big. It’s probably one of the smallest museums we’ve ever visited, but this is reflected in its low entry fee. Don’t miss it if you’re visiting the town, however, because some of the stuff there is great, and the wartime exhibits in particular were fabulous. My absolute favourite: there was a transcription on the walls from a 1978 edition of the Dorset Evening Echo of the account of Lieutenant John Hoare accepting the surrender of a German U-Boat in 1945 and escorting it back to Portland which, if it’s still there when you visit, I insist you read. It’s an incredible account that really brings home the human side of war as the two sides exchanged stories and photos of loved ones on the submarine heading towards Dorset; respect; camaraderie of people in similar professions just doing their job; then despair at the treatment of the Germans on land by superiors wanting photo opportunities and obstinate Americans wanting to throw their weight around.

All this fraternisation may appear reprehensible. Judging by the home papers there is a hysteria or hatred about – a desirable thing maybe in war, but I cannot say I like it now we have won.

The horrors of the concentration camps were unbelievable. But I refuse to hold all Germans responsible for such crimes. I would stake my life that the Germans I have met could not, and would not, be devils incarnate.

That certainly added a sombre mood to proceedings even if it was thoroughly interesting but it did at least mark the end of the cultural aspects to the day. For the remainder we’d be indulging in what we do best thanks to excessive practice: eating and drinking.

Our plan was to first have a couple of drinks in the Doghouse Micropub that we’d discovered the previous day and which was our sort of place. And that’s exactly what we did. We then planned to freshen up back at the hotel, have a bit of a rest, then head off for our meal once the time was right. And that’s exactly what we didn’t because some people came in the pub who we then started chatting to. So we had to stay for some more drinks. Quite a few more. We’re easily swayed by good conversation in close reach of alcohol. In fact it reached that point where I suddenly realised we had twenty minutes to get to the restaurant and we had to down our glasses quickly and say our goodbyes.

As you’ve previously read if you’ve not skimmed past, Al Molo was on the beach in Weymouth in the former Pier Bandstand building. We arrived dead on time for our sitting and proceeded to enjoy some pleasant views of the sea in a really lovely location ahead of a very enjoyable meal served by an extremely friendly waitress. I can’t quite remember what we ate but you might be able to work it out from the photos. I do know that we didn’t stop drinking but that’s what happens when you give us the opportunity to do so. At the end of the meal we had for a brief moment wine to finish, a cocktail each that we’d ordered, and a shot each of limoncello (for that’s the law in Italian eateries) all on the table. I’m not complaining.

Al Molo gets the thumbs up from us if you like some fine dining and you’re in Weymouth.

This was our last night in Weymouth and we spent the final twenty minutes outside in it walking back along the promenade to our hotel. It was still raining, as you can tell. On the next and last day of our West Country break to come we would spend an evening in Southampton to meet up with some travel blogging friends for a meal and ahead of that we would pay a visit to Beaulieu Motor Museum, a reasonably regular haunt for us not too far from home. That will be covered in the concluding post in this travelogue series.

We chose Worthing not just because of its convenient closeness but also because we’d never visited it before, but we knew that in terms of attractions options were going to be limited. Therefore, since we also like drinking, we decided that we’d make the focus of the day a pub crawl. We’re British and it’s an activity close to our hearts. In addition to a stroll around the pubs we’d also have time to see some of Worthing’s street art plus venture out onto its pier as we made sure to get in a good seaside walk while we were there too.

Let’s start with the Friday night.

We stayed at the Chatsworth Hotel as it ticked a few boxes: near the seafront; fairly quiet location; in easy walking distance to the town centre and to the car park we’d need to use. It was a perfectly fine hotel with nothing outstanding but no problems whatsoever either. You don’t get to be a blogger of the travel variety like me without knowing that people just fall over themselves for those sweet, sweet pictures of hotel rooms and bathrooms – what with people being fundamentally odd – and, while it’s true that I often disappoint, I won’t in this instance.

The first order of business after checking in was to find somewhere to eat as we hadn’t done so before leaving home. There is a restaurant attached to the property on the seafront but we walked past that about fifty metres or so to see if we would be able to get a table at Casa Ciro instead since it was Italian and that’s one of our preferred types of cuisine when dining. A bit of a risk with this being a Friday night and us not having booked ahead but we got lucky and were seated for a meal that, just like our hotel, was perfectly fine, especially when factoring in the price; nothing fantastic again but no complaints from us either. What was very nice was the complimentary shot of Limoncello each. I don’t know if that’s something they do for everyone or just once you reach a certain threshold of spending.

After food we decided to get our bearings in the nearby town centre area and kept an eye out for any interesting-looking pubs. Our plan for crawling around some of the pubs the following day involved some more out-of-the-way locations but this first evening was just about settling in and sticking closer to the hotel. We ended up having drinks in three establishments, choosing them primarily based on how busy or attractive they looked along with how cold the wind was making us feel. The first of the pubs we visited was the Libertine Social, the second was JB’s Bar, and the last stop was at the Beach House, but I can’t say we were wildly impressed with any of them.

And now for Saturday.

For as much as we like to hit pubs we’re not raging alcoholics and try not to head straight for them after breakfast (depending on how late we get up, of course) so took some time out early in the morning to hit the local shops in case there was something exotic in Worthing that couldn’t be found in Portsmouth (spoiler: no) and to take a look around the local museum. The museum was worth the visit although I didn’t take any photos inside. In a small garden area at the rear I spotted a sculpture which I recognised as being by Philip Jackson, having seen some of his pieces at an exhibition in Chichester called Sculpture in Paradise. This particular piece was called Sior Maschera (or Masked Man).

Of more interest to my camera-clicking finger was some of the architecture along the short walk and some of the street art we stumbled upon. The following two photos show two lovely Art Deco buildings. First up is the Connaught Theatre. Built in 1914 and originally the Picturedome cinema it was extended in the 1930s during which time it acquired the classic Streamline Moderne façade and became a venue for theatre instead.

Not as gracefully flowing as the theatre but still in the streamlined style was the place for all your Sussex-based beds needs on Chapel Road. This large building had formerly been a branch of Caffyns Garages in the late 20s or early 30s and was damaged during air raids in 1940.

Where Chapel Road and North Street meet in Worthing there is a roundabout and under that is a subway for pedestrians in order to cross the busy junction. Inside there we discovered a public street art gallery showing off some very nice designs indeed.

As we made our way towards the seafront now we passed another building with some notable architecture from Frank Morris, Worthing’s Borough Architect at the time, who, like me, was fond of concrete. All the best people like concrete. The Law Courts building dates from 1967.

With the end of our in-town activities completed we commenced our walk along the beach that would lead into the pub crawl for the rest of the day. The very start of this walk coincided with the location of Worthing Pier and, as regular readers will know, we do like a pier. We were therefore obliged to stroll down its length and subject ourselves to the strong and biting wind adding to the already fairly cool day.

The original pier, laid down in 1861 and the thirteenth seaside pier to be built in England, was only 4.6 metres wide but proved to be so popular that in the 1880s this was doubled and additional structures were added for the enjoyment of visitors. The first moving picture show to be seen in Worthing was on the pier in 1896.

The style of the pier that stands today and which has won Pier of the Year status on two occasions is, again, Streamline Moderne Art Deco (Worthing is fond of it, and who can blame Worthing?) which dates from the 1930s. This came about as a result of two rebuilds following storm damage in 1913 then a very destructive fire in 1933. An even wider pier would allow more of that classic pier architecture to be seen more easily but it’s still a lovely sight to behold so if you do visit this West Sussex seaside town then make sure to take yourself down the pier to admire those long horizontal lines and sweeping curves.

We walked along Worthing beach westwards on first Marine Parade then West Parade promenades. That wind nipping at us kept the walking pace pretty brisk which we like to think of as caloric-burning ahead of the drinking to come. On a clear day the view out to sea would have been decidedly more appealing but for this walk it was a little drab and not helped by the churned up silt and sand turning the water even murkier than it would have been under the leaden sky. Seafront buildings began in the Victorian style – many likely now hotels – before giving way to more modern blocks of flats. Eye-catching structures along the beach itself were limited to a few shelters and some beach huts notable for their lack of visual appeal more than anything else.

The walk along the beach was a little bit short of two and a half kilometres in length and took us to the border of Worthing with Goring-by-Sea. Towards the end of this stretch along the West Sussex coastline there was another example of that gorgeous Art Deco style to gaze upon as well as some more modern buildings, and a small beach garden area with some boards, rocks, and twisted driftwood sculptures provided a break from the monotony of the sea view.

Let the pub crawl commence!

We’d walked as far as we had because the first pub we were most interested in visiting happened to be this far from the main part of town. That pub in question was the Georgi Fin Micropub. In fact, as micropubs go, this was one of the largest ones we’ve visited. We like micropubs a lot. I like real and craft ales, and my wife tends to prefer ciders, and these are the sorts of places that excel in providing those where the big chain pubs often do not. With this being the pub we were keenest to see, with us having walked this far, with it being very nice inside and with a good range of drinks, and with one of those being a raspberry and coconut chocolate stout that absolutely demanded our tastebuds’ attention we were obliged to stay for two.

The second pub on our crawl was the Green Man Ale & Cider House (which I’d ordinarily link to because I’m nice like that but at the time of writing it contains a tracking redirect on its site so I won’t because I’m nice like that too). You already know we like ale and cider so this sounded perfect and it pretty much was. This was more the size of micropub we’re used to and it had loads of drinks options. You can also see that it was rammed with people which is a good sign that it’s a great place to have a drink, although that was mostly because Worthing were playing at home that day not far from the pub and these were people keen to have a drink before attending it. To start with it was standing room only for us until some of the people left for the game but as seats became available we plonked ourselves down and ended up chatting to a couple of locals. Great range of ales and ciders plus friendly patrons made for a winning combination. And Worthing won 4-2 on the day too.

The Brooksteed Alehouse was the third pub we visited in Worthing on this Saturday. This was a cosy little pub with a fair selection of drinks but the standout feature was a toilet with a blue plaque commemorating its opening by actor and comedian Kevin Bishop in April 2018.

On our way to the next pub we passed by the Worthing headquarters of Lemo UK, a 2010-built modern structure designed by Swiss and British architects, and something that stands out considerably from the buildings around. I generally like the design but there looks to be little consideration for the environment it’s in.

Pub four of the crawl was the Selden Arms where I had my third stout of the day – it was that sort of day, temperature-wise – with this one being a fudge stout to follow on from the chocolate one in the pub prior to this.

The fifth pub was so nice inside, mostly because it had a fire on. Up until this point all the locations along our Worthing pub crawl had been really quite cold with the reason being that some were brewing on the premises and some were storing kegs in the main bar area and needed to keep them cool. The sorts of pubs we visit do suffer from this drawback when the days get shorter but it’s a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things. This was the New Amsterdam.

In case you’re wondering whether we ate at all during this trundle through pubs then wonder no more because we sought out a place doing food for pub six to address this important issue. Pub six ended up being the Rose and Crown which was a bit cramped (or popular if you prefer), felt a little bit dated, but had friendly staff, did adequate drinks, and allowed me to try a type of fish I’d never had before, skate. I can’t complain about the food or drink at all but I will say that skate isn’t going to feature too highly on my Tasty Fish list. Everyone has a Tasty Fish list. Don’t try to deny it.

Pub seven was somewhere we’d seen the night before late in the evening but which hadn’t been open. It’s difficult to not notice Anchored in Worthing on account of its TARDIS doors to enter. Like some of the earlier pubs on this crawl, this was a proper micropub: a single room, low ceiling, small capacity, with lots of new ales to consider. We walked in to a buzz of conversation that immediately stopped as we stepped through the door. Puzzled looks from everyone – us included – was then explained by all the locals expecting someone else to come in. After that momentary you’re-not-from-around-here atmosphere it all got very friendly, though, and the small venue made it easy to duck into and out of chats going on. Lovely place.

A short walk brought us to pub eight, The Whisk(e)y Rooms, which only appeared to be one room despite its name and a very crowded one at that. We were able to squeeze into a tiny spot by the window and thought that since we were in a bar with the word “whiskey” in it we’d try out a cocktail. Don’t try to analyse the reasoning behind that. A fun little boutique bar.

We thought we might be able to get one more pub in so headed down to the seafront where pub nine had caught our eye earlier in the day. Bar 42 (or Forty Two; there doesn’t seem to be any consistency in the spelling) was spacious and orange so it had that going for it. It also had a disco so if you like discos then there’s that too. People-watching was easy to do, so also a positive. Where it was let down was in the drinks range for our tastes so while it might have a lot to offer other people we made do with a quick bourbon and coke each and left fairly quickly.

With more time left in the evening than we’d expected following our swift visit on the seafront we made a decision to take in one more place before calling it a night. We hadn’t intended visiting the Rocking Horse because it was a cocktail and wine bar but it ended up being the tenth pub on our Worthing pub crawl due to its proximity to our hotel. We opted for cocktails and, yes, that’s mine served in the shark.

So that concludes our short visit to Worthing and the things we discovered in town and on the walk along the beach ahead of the pub crawl. While Worthing as a whole didn’t have much to offer the casual visitor we personally enjoyed the street art and the modern and art deco architecture that we found a lot. Worthing’s pubs were plentiful and the micropubs in particular were excellent so if you’re a real or craft ale or cider drinker then I’d recommend a stay similar to us just for that reason alone.

On our previous visit we’d explored a bit of Newcastle, popping into museums and looking at the old castle there on the mornings of the games, but for this year’s trip we were a bit more relaxed about things and mostly contented ourselves with some general ambling around the streets instead. This gave us a chance to really soak up the huge variety of architectural styles of buildings that had survived to the present day.

While Newcastle was a target for air raids during the second world war on account of its industrial centres, it was not hit anywhere near as bad as our home city, Portsmouth, which suffered six times as many injuries and deaths (the heaviest night of bombing in Portsmouth alone almost cost the same number of lives as Newcastle’s entire losses in the war) and the destruction of thousands of buildings. It’s always nice, therefore, when we’re travelling elsewhere in the United Kingdom, to see buildings from a wide range of historical periods and in a wide range of styles since what we might have had was mostly turned into rubble in the 1940s. Newcastle does not disappoint in this respect.

This post, then, can be considered a photowalk around Newcastle city centre on a Saturday and Sunday morning in May 2016 with some occasional information about some of the sights we saw if they have any significance or historical or architectural interest to us. You can expect to see Baroque, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Jacobean, Brutalism, and Modernism represented.

We were staying at a hotel north of Newcastle – the Holiday Inn, Gosforth Park (not the hotel we’d meant to book; a story I won’t bore you with right now; farther away from Newcastle than we’d planned on being; but fabulous staff and a very nice hotel overall) – and there was a nearby, regular bus service that ran to and from the city centre. We started our wander around Newcastle close to Eldon Square, a wide space hosting a war memorial. This memorial was unveiled in 1923 by Field Marshall Douglas Haig who knew a thing or two about war, having overseen the two million British casualties under his command in the First World War. The thing or two he knew didn’t include protecting lives.

The Pearl (formerly Pearl Assurance House, as you can see from the photo below) is a pleasing piece of brutalism dating from the 1970s. The small building next to it has some wildly contrasting plasterwork that feels like a mix between Art Nouveau and Tudor, but this decoration dates from the early 1950s. Just along from these buildings was the Laing Art Gallery that we felt compelled to pop into and take a look around; at the time this was housing an absolutely fantastic Alice in Wonderland exhibition.

A couple of nice examples of Art Deco lines in the following photos. The DEX Garage was opened in 1931 and it’s the oldest, straight-ramped multi-storey car park in the country outside London, originally sporting a turntable and elevator to take the cars to spaces. It’s sadly due for demolition at the time of writing this. The building with the faded “Northern” wording is somewhere I can’t place on a map, nor find any information for, but the design clearly dates it to around the same period.

Not far from late-thirteenth century St John The Baptist church is a monument to the engineer George Stephenson, designed by John Graham Lough, and unveiled in 1862. The main statue is of Stephenson himself while around the base of the stone sit four figures representing some achievement of Stephenson’s life.

The attractive Victorian-style theatre is the Tyne Theatre and Opera House and was opened in 1867. The wording Stoll Picture Theatre comes from its 1919 transformation into a cinema, and the first film it showed to audiences was Tarzan of the Apes. The Stoll Picture Theatre was the first cinema in Newcastle to show “talkies”. Nearby are some remnants of the old wall built in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries to defend the city from Scottish invaders from the north.

The conclusion of our first day of the weekend in Newcastle from a photographing the sights perspective saw us arrive at St James’ Park where the fans were gathering for the afternoon kick-off. You can see photographs of the Magic Weekend action from both days by clicking on 2016 Newcastle Magic Weekend Rugby League Photos.

The games for Sunday kicked off a little earlier so there was less chance to explore Newcastle but we still had another stroll anyway.

While Art Nouveau isn’t my favourite – a little too decorative for my simpler, cleaner tastes – there’s no denying that the Emerson Chambers building has some lovely elements of the style with some Baroque and Jacobean flairs too. I particularly like the copper corner domes and the clock faces are just fabulous on this very early twentieth century building.

The tall column in the public square area of Newcastle that we frequently found ourselves crossing through or catching sight of on our pre-match wandering is Grey’s Monument. This monument was raised in 1838 to give thanks to Earl Grey (he of the tea fame) for introducing the Great Reform Act in Parliament.

Another of many listed buildings in Newcastle, and a very attractive one too, is the Central Arcade in the Central Exchange building. This style of shopping arcade came to prominence in the late Victorian and early Edwardian periods, and Central Arcade dates from 1906.

Anyone who’s read other architectural-based posts of mine on this site will know that I am a lover of modernist and brutalist architecture. The Commercial Union Building in Newcastle is thoroughly modern, dating from 1971, built from pre-cast reinforced concrete blocks. While it can never claim to be a beautiful example of the style, most definitely preferring function over form in this instance, and perhaps jarringly so with little consideration to the surrounding aesthetic, the presence of supporting pillars in the manner of Le Corbusier‘s Five Points of Architecture is always a joy to see.

The sixteenth and seventeenth century Jacobean buildings not far from the bridges and riverside in Newcastle are former merchant houses. This part of the city had been a centre for trading since the Roman period. In 1772 the daughter of a tenant living there, Bessie Surtees, climbed down from a window in order to elope with the son of a coal merchant. They fled to Scotland and were married. In time, Surtees’ husband, John Scott, would become the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, and so the building became known as Bessie Surtees House and a plaque now commemorates her elopement.

The final bit of architecture to note, spotted on our last walk up towards the football stadium on the Sunday, is the former Newcastle Co-op building on Newgate Street. You hardly need me to tell you that this is an iconic example of Art Deco, of course. The building was opened in 1932 but the site on which it was built had formerly housed another of those Victorian and Edwardian shopping arcades dating from 1902, and during exploratory work for refurbishment in 2012 the original ornate iron piers from that arcade were rediscovered.

For us, there’s no better type of short break (not a staycation; don’t get me started on that; I will hurt you) than one based by the coastline. Of course, as anyone who knows us will know, I’m not including one place in this generalisation – I won’t mention its name but it does rhyme with Cackpool – but a great example of a place in England we’ve liked enough to visit on more than one occasion is Margate in Kent, and in this post I’m going to take a walk from Cliftonville, east of Margate, to the main town along the seafront, highlighting interesting sights along the way. Interesting to me, anyway.

In 2015 we stayed in Margate for the second year in a row, and as with the previous year we booked into the Walpole Bay Hotel. This is located in Cliftonville, less than two kilometres’ walk from the beach but set on cliffs on the northern coastline so making for a great and not-too-long walk to and from town. It’s a lovely distance, in fact, for clearing the cobwebs in the mind at the start and end of a look around the town. Walpole Bay Hotel is not just a hotel, but a living museum, and we adored it so much on our first visit that we had to stay again. It’s hard to describe it, but if we head back to Margate at any point then it will be where we book again. The first two photos here show the view from our hotel room, looking northwards over the sea and westwards in the direction of Margate.

As you can probably tell, we arrived at our hotel in the early evening, with the sun dropping towards the horizon. We wasted little time, wanting to get out and down into town in search of a pub or two in which to enjoy our first night in Kent on this break. From the hotel we headed straight to the cliff where steps led down to a promenade that snaked along the seafront.

If you’re a fan of tidal pools – somebody’s got to be – then you’re going to be spoilt for choice in Margate as there are two large ones to choose from. One, on the main beach, can be seen further down this post, but there’s another one directly off-shore from the Walpole Bay Hotel called, naturally enough, the Walpole Bay Tidal Pool. Both pools are artificial constructs, trapping seawater that floods in at high tide from flowing back out when the water recedes, but only the one here at Walpole Bay is Grade II-listed (on account of its scale and engineering techniques used) and recommended for swimmers.

In the first part of this look along Margate seafront I’ll skip over the prettiest sight along the lower promenade, that of the Art Deco lift on the cliff edge, and continue on towards the main town, but there’s more on it later in this post. For now you can simply admire the architectural styling.

There’s no getting away from the fact that the landward view along the promenade walk is not going to win any beauty prizes. Even the addition of some street art didn’t do a lot to improve matters but we did enjoy coming across the Flying Toast imagery from Artista which almost seemed to serve as waymarkers along the route.

The next spot of interest along the coastline walk was the site of the Cliftonville Lido, identified by the Lido Sands mosaic tiling reflecting when the outdoor pool area of the complex was filled with sand in the 1970s (more grass than sand when we visited, though). This area would have been fantastic in its heyday (1920s-1930s, but some of the lido elements date from around a hundred year earlier (more on that a little later)), with underground tunnels for baths, bathing machines wheeled down to the sea (four-wheeled, covered, with umbrellas that lowered towards the water to protect the modesty of women entering and exiting the sea), and an amphitheatre complex. On the cliffs nearby was a sloping section in which a short funicular railway would have brought people up and down.

Our walk on this first night in Margate brought us to the harbour and its curving, stone pier, the Harbour Arm. We enjoyed the setting sun and views out across the water before making our way to some pubs for food and drink.

A word here about the pubs we visited on this evening. First up was The Lifeboat, a place we’d hit the year before in Margate and definitely our sort of pub; tiny with loads of real ales and ciders. Highly recommended. We had some pie and mash there and a few drinks before heading off for something else, and that brought us to The Northern Belle. Things that happened there:

• One guy recommended the Turner Contemporary Art Gallery to us once he realised we were from out-of-town because it was hosting a Grayson Perry exhibit. We’d passed the gallery before hitting the harbour but hadn’t checked out what was happening there as it had been closed. We would take his advice the next day.
• A tramp came into the pub and was given a free drink by the barman who then explained to us and another couple of tourists after he’d left that the guy had used to be quite successful before suffering a nervous breakdown and becoming homeless.
• Two guys in the pub started talking about their pasts as bank robbers. They’d served time, and among some anecdotes one of them mentioned that he’d encouraged his wing in prison – including the officers – to watch The Last Night of the Proms and sing along to Jerusalem.
• A posh, older woman came in, sat at the bar, and started talking about the UKIP rally she’d attended and how wonderful leaving the EU would be. Bank robber Steve took an undisguised dislike to her, referred to her as “Mrs Bucket”, and went up in our estimation.
• When Steve discovered we were from Portsmouth he started talking about his youth as a football hooligan with Spurs’ Yid Army. He told us the toughest fight he’d had was with Cardiff but that Portsmouth’s 6:57 Crew were a close second. He was also proud that he’d been seen on Match of the Day getting punched by Pat Jennings.

On our first visit to Margate in 2014 we’d used the town as a base for exploring Kent during the day and only really seen the town at night. For this visit, however, we wanted to see what we could find to entertain us on a full day there so the second day saw us repeat much of the previous evening’s walk ahead of a look for something to do. We tend to travel outside typical tourism seasons so we knew that not everything would be open; as a result we didn’t have any firm plans for things to do in Margate but we figured we’d find enough to occupy us.

After breakfast in the Walpole Bay Hotel we made our to the cliff top for a look out across the sea and along the seafront.

Before heading west towards Margate as we had done the night before we decided to see what an eastward walk would uncover. This very quickly brought us to Palm Bay, a decent option for a sandy beach likely to be considerably quieter than the Main Sands of the town but with very little else there other than a café. Also, while it was clearly a bay and worthy of the name there were no palms that we could see. That’s false advertising, that is.

We headed back along the lower promenade and past the Walpole Bay tidal pool.

The Cliff Lift is a Grade II-Listed Building on account of its rarity, intactness, and architectural interest. The overriding style of the 1934-built structure is Art Deco, of course, but there are Egyptian influences in the tapering design, too. This was one of two mechanical means to ascend and descend the cliffs along the coast, with the other being the funicular nearer to the lido.

The cliffs are chalk, which you’ll probably already know is a form of limestone and pretty soft on the rock spectrum. If Bryan Adams was a mineral then he’d be chalk. Being soft and white and easy in which to make carvings and use the residue to leave markings there were lots of examples of exactly that having been done over the years. I’m referring to the cliffs here but it probably equally applies to Bryan Adams, to be fair.

It didn’t take us long to reach the Harbour Arm again. This curving, stone pier was constructed between 1812 and 1815. The lighthouse that marks its end point is a later reconstruction of the original, this one being erected in 1955. There were some small establishments along its length – cafés, a bar, some galleries – but we didn’t stop to see any of them.

In addition to the lighthouse at the end of the pier, there was a sculpture that wouldn’t look out of place as some kind of adversary for Doctor Who to face off against. This shell lady is Mrs Booth and was made by Ann Carrington (read more about the sculpture and the other shell ladies here: Ann Carrington – Mrs Booth). Mrs Booth is made from bronze, and like other sculptures in this series was named after a famous resident of the area. The real Mrs Booth, Sophia Caroline, was a landlady with whom J.M.W. Turner lived in his later life as “Mr Booth”.

The location of the Margate property in which Turner and Mrs Booth stayed is now the Turner Contemporary Art Gallery and it was there that we next visited, following the advice of one of the previous evening’s pub patrons; that was our first experience of seeing some of Grayson Perry’s pottery and tapestry pieces up close and was a fabulous experience. Look at us, embracing all the arty stuff!

After our intake of modern art we passed by something considerably older on our way to something rather bizarre.

The older thing was the Tudor House. Considered to be one of the oldest of its kind in Kent, this former yeoman farmer’s house was built in 1525 and is timber-framed, two storeys high, and sat on a foundation of a flint plinth. It was clearly a house for someone of high status, sporting two chimneys and glazed windows. The house – which by the late nineteenth century had been split into three cottages and was in a general state of decline – was scheduled for demolition in the 1930s as part of a local scheme to clear the slum areas of Margate. Luckily, a builder recognised some of the historic features in the building and it was saved from destruction, instead undergoing renovation work using traditional Tudor methods and materials to restore it to its state today.

The Tudor House is Grade I-listed and looked gorgeous from the outside, but it didn’t appear to be open to visitors on the day we passed by.

We next took a look at the bizarre thing, and it was something we’d remembered seeing the signs for on the year before’s trip to Margate, but which, with us only really seeing the town in the evenings, we’d not had a chance to explore. This was the Shell Grotto, a quite enchanting, underground set of tunnels with practically every surface covered with mosaic patterns formed from shells. How many shells? Oh, over four and a half million shells. Whilst the majority of the different types of shells used can be found locally, especially along the bays we’d walked by, the flat winkle shells which make up the largest surface area cannot. It is speculated that they came from Southampton, but that’s not the end of the speculation.

That the grotto was discovered in 1835 is not disputed, but the purpose of the grotto and its age, which would point to the builders, is. Hypotheses have included:

• A Phoenician trading post, since the design bears some similarities to others found in Europe.
• A mystical place connected to the Knights Templar.
• A mystical place connected to Freemasons.
• A mystical place connected to Mithras.
• An astronomical temple to the sun.
• A rich man’s folly.

Gas lighting initially installed ended up coating the shells with carbon deposits that make dating the place nearly impossible, and the designs of the various motifs is unique, not really pointing to any specific culture. To us, though, when walking around and being genuinely impressed with the effort and artistry involved, the lattermost suggestion of the Shell Grotto being a folly felt most likely. Margate doesn’t seem to have any Roman or Phoenician history, or any other historical culture of noteworthiness for that matter. As a town its origins seem to spring up in the early Middle Ages but it doesn’t seem to hold any significance to religious groups either. That the grotto was “found” in 1835; that it has similarities to other grottoes from a century or so earlier (one was built at Goodwood in the 1740s); that the designs seem to include Indian, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman motifs; that getting winkles from Southampton to Margate in sufficient quantities prior to significant coastal trading would have been quite the task; that 1835 coincides with the early construction of the nearby Cliftonville Lido when it might be supposed an awful lot of shells were being dug up: all these point to a bit of “Why the hell not?” attitude from someone with a bit of money.

Or aliens.

We may never know, but the Shell Grotto is a lovely bit of mystery to have a nose around.

We emerged back into daylight and headed off to grab something to eat in town. On the way I snapped some more examples of street art in Margate. Certainly not the highest quality artwork we’ve ever seen, and enough low-quality tagging to point to young, local boredom and general dissatisfaction rather than inspired designs. Of course, Margate is part of Thanet and close to where Oswald Mosley-lite, Nigel Farage, was prominent at around this time, so it’s easy to conclude that any proximity to that self-serving, semi-sentient, cum-stain in a human skin formed from the sewn-together carcasses of blobfish might suck the spirit out of creative minds.

A break for something to eat and drink, then we continued around the bay and towards the sandy beach of Margate, known as the Main Sands.

We passed the Margate Clock Tower that was built to commemorate Queen Victoria‘s Golden Jubilee of 1887. The tower was completed in 1889 because late delivery on construction projects is what we do in this country. It’s our thing. We’ve seen more attractive clock towers around the country built at around the same time for the same reason (and we’ve seen some truly ugly ones too) but what makes Margate’s structure worth a look at, especially at one o’clock in the afternoon, is that it has a working time ball that rises and drops to signal the time. It’s one of very few working examples in the world (it had been broken but was repaired in 2014) as the purpose of a time ball – to allow vessels at sea to synchronise clocks with something visible on land – became obsolete with the invention of radio.

When people think of Margate they perhaps most likely think of Chas and Dave singing or of the Jolly Boy’s Outing episode of Only Fools and Horses, but they might also think about Dreamland. Dreamland is the site of an amusement park, hosting rides since the 1880s, although the name Dreamland itself wasn’t used until 1920 when a wooden rollercoaster on a scenic railway became the big attraction. That rollercoaster would aid in the park’s salvation as the area went into decline in the early 2000s and plans were drawn up to close it down, sell everything off, and redevelop it all; the Grade II-listed status of the railway hampered that and local objections further delayed things (there was an arson attack on the wooden railway to conveniently remove that obstruction which fortunately failed too) until the local council purchased the land and committed to bringing the attraction back.

The history of Dreamland includes the murder of a sex worker by a circus strongman and the death of its founder at home, killed by a hatchet wielded by an employee who then committed suicide on a railway line, so lots to dig into there, and its many attractions are obviously the main draw for most people, but we satisfied ourselves with admiring the external view only of the Dreamland cinema building. Built in 1935 and so obviously Art Deco that it hurts. It’s beautiful.

From one example of beautiful architecture to another, as very close to Dreamland, and with views directly at it from one side of the building, was Arlington House. You can instantly see this is modernist and brutal, and those wave patterns are just fabulous. They were incorporated to give the residents angled views in order to catch the sun when it shone. You can read more from the architect talking about that particular facet of the overall design and the general inspiration for the building in this excellent interview here: Russell Diplock, Architect behind Arlington House. If you were to read the Wikipedia entry for Arlington House then you’d see mention of a rooftop swimming pool with glass bottom – information gleaned from a 2018 newspaper article – but that’s the only source for that information, it’s not supported by any photographs or plans, it’s not mentioned in that interview or visible in any newspaper articles or adverts for the accommodation, and when I mentioned it on social media it was immediately dismissed as false by a local resident with interest in the building and area. In summary: we can say with high levels of certainty that no, Arlington House never had a swimming pool on its roof. Don’t believe everything you read on Wikipedia.

A couple more sights interrupted our short walk to the sands of the beach and which offer some momentary interest.

The Standing Stones are the result of a 1997 art project when writer Suzannah Dunn worked with children to explore ideas and thoughts about Margate, people, and feelings in words, stories, and poetry. From all the words written down and spoken by the children a poem was created and carved into stone by sculptor Paul Wehrle.

The Lifeboat Memorial is dedicated to the nine men lost in 1897 when the lifeboat Friend To All Nations capsized. The lifeboats were operated by local boatmen as a co-operative measure; each paid a share in to maintain the vessels, and each received a share of salvage when saving vessels and people in distress.

Margate Beach or Margate Sands or Main Sands was where we were heading. With us travelling out of season it was quiet and perhaps even a little foreboding under the light cloud cover, but on a bright, warm, sunny, summer day you can see why this wide beach of golden sands has been a popular destination for day-trippers for as long as it has. Margate ticks all the boxes for a great, traditional, British seaside resort.

Margate’s second tidal pool is on the main beach, although it’s categorised as a boating pond these days (perhaps because it’s less easy to keep clean) and swimming is not advised. It was nice enough to walk along its raised concrete edge during our stay and to take photos across the flat beach and seafront areas towards the town and harbour.

That brings this walk along Margate seafront to an end as we decided from looking at a map not to continue further around the coast but to head back inland a little way and start on the all-important job of pub-crawling and working out where we were going to eat that evening.

I don’t know that Margate has enough to keep people like us interested in the town itself for more than a single day at a time but then we don’t do amusement parks and we’re not the sort to lounge about on beaches. Families with young children could do a lot worse than here, even if using it as a base for some of the time to explore other parts of Kent. Prior to the explosion in package holidays, Margate was a very popular UK resort and for fairly obvious reasons, but that steady income from people staying for a week or so and being supplemented by day-trippers from London or thereabouts gave way to a just a relative trickle from the latter once it became easier to travel farther afield and to warmer parts with better value for money. Margate’s no different from any other place in the country in that respect, of course, and it suffers that same evidence of declining fortunes everywhere you look, but we like it a lot as a place. We’ve been to Margate more than once and we’ll go again, I’m certain.