We typically book excursions when we’re cruising because there are usually lots of interesting things (or one specific thing) to see which aren’t necessarily anywhere near where the cruise ship docks. The only time we won’t book cruise excursions are if we are familiar with the port and we know for certain we’ll be in walking distance or doing-it-ourselves distance from anything, or if there simply isn’t anything that grabs our attention (which doesn’t happen often). We didn’t book anything at Guernsey, though, not because of a lack of interest (there were castles and war-related attractions all over the place) but because Guernsey is a tender port for cruise ships; the ships are too large to dock so tender boats are required and because there is no sheltered area for the ships the use of tender boats is governed by the wind and sea conditions. In short, we couldn’t guarantee at the time of booking the cruise that we would even be allowed off the ship in Guernsey so we decided to play it by ear.

The morning after leaving Southampton the Sapphire Princess was anchored off Guernsey’s capital, St Peter Port. The sky was clear, there was a little bit of sea mist or haze, and the wind was light. A perfect day for getting up a little later than we normally would, enjoying a leisurely breakfast, then heading down to the tender boat ticket location near the photo gallery on deck seven. Our timing was perfect as we walked up, were asked if we wanted to leave immediately, replied that would be nice, were handed two tickets, then walked straight down to the tender departure area and into a queue of about three other people forming the last of those boarding a boat that would head off only a couple of minutes later.

The ride took about ten minutes and we were right at the front of the boat where the open windows allowed the pair of us – but mostly my wife – to get splashed with sea water as occasional waves were thumped into. We didn’t mind too much. At St Peter Port we got off and were directed one of two ways away from the pier depending on whether we had an arranged excursion or were doing our own thing. We were doing the latter, of course, and made our way along the marina area on the city before angling southwards.

Knowing that we wouldn’t be booking an excursion I’d done some research beforehand to see what was in the vicinity of St Peter Port and, specifically, where we could get to on our own. Fortifications and museums all looked very accessible to us and appeared to be the sorts of things that the excursions were offering anyway but, on the lookout for things we could do that other cruisers might not necessarily know about or attempt, I stumbled upon a list of walks that could be done and the one that appealed to me was this one: St Peter Port to Fermain Bay. I knew with the amount of time we would have in Guernsey that we could easily get part or all of the walking route done and hit a few historical sites and attractions on the way back too.

Following the main road along the coast to the south from St Peter Port took us past La Valette Underground Museum and the Victorian bathing pools then past the entrance to the Guernsey Aquarium. We knew the museum would be an option for visiting on our way back because it was also offered as cruise excursions but hadn’t been sure if the aquarium would be open as it wasn’t and this was a Sunday. As it turned out we could see welcoming signs and put that on our to visit list for the return as well.

Just past the aquarium was a flight of steps that led up to Clarence Battery, another location we intended to stop at on our way back. The Guernsey walk we were following carried on past the fortified lookout position on the clifftop and continued to hug the coastline as it wound its way southwards, occasionally quite steeply, and offering some fabulous views out across the sea, back the way we’d come, and looking out at the Sapphire Princess at anchor in the light haze in the distance.

Early May was just right for us to hit a known waypoint on our route, a suddenly serene spot known as the Bluebell Woods, which, like its many namesakes around the country at this time of year, was carpeted in the flowers. The closeness of the trees and set-back distance from the cliffs and any roads seemed to deaden most external noises and a number of benches were occupied with fellow walkers (almost all of whom appeared to be locals) having a rest to absorb the tranquility of the place.

We spent a couple of minutes in the wooded area enjoying the relative coolness of the place before carrying on down a steep part of the path in the direction of the Guernsey coastline once again.

A short distance on from the Bluebell Woods was a short decline off the main path leading to a brick wall. This was the top of the Ozanne Steps, a place I’d seen some photos of while researching our trip to the island and what we might see along the coastal walk and which I knew was somewhere I wanted to descend to take photos. The steps were built to allow a former governor of Guernsey and his wife a private way down to a secluded bay for bathing. The steps were not in great condition (they’re mostly used by local fishermen these days) but the views from the various landings down the zig-zagging steps were lovely and it’s well worth the short detour if you’re doing the walk from St Peter Port to Fermain Bay yourself.

It was easy to see why the governor and his wife had wanted these steps built once we reached the bottom. The flat, rocky outcrop provided a great spot for sunbathing and an easy way to clamber into and out of the water. The scenery all around the Ozanne Steps was gorgeous, helped by some fabulous weather during our visit.

It was at this point, however, that my wife aggravated an old injury in her foot – a hairline fracture – (enough, actually, to bring her to tears with the pain) and our plan to continue the walk was aborted. A very slow, very anxious, frequently pausing retracing of our steps back along the coastal path towards St Peter Port then commenced. So, something to consider should you be thinking about trying out this walk on Guernsey yourself is that the steep parts are really quite steep in places and you will need a reasonable level of fitness to do it; the seclusion of long areas of the walk too would make any accidents more troublesome than they would be anyway although we did see a fair number of walkers in both directions as we undertook the trek.

We eventually made it to more level ground (and less discomfort for my wife) in the area around Clarence Battery where the next post will pick up.

We took our time heading back and stopped frequently so that she could take some weight off the hairline fracture and while I took some opportunities to snap a few photos I was understandably more concerned for my wife’s comfort than simply grabbing pictures, especially as I’d not been shy about snapping away on the walk coming the other way.

As we approached Clarence Battery the ground levelled off and the pain diminished so I got the nod that it was okay for me to spend a few minutes nosing around the 18th century defensive position.

Clarence Battery formed part of the outer defences of Fort George, itself a fortification designed to protect St Peter Port. The fort was commissioned in 1779 and the gun battery we were visiting was built in 1787. At the time the battery was known as Terres Point but it was renamed Clarence Battery in 1815 in honour of George III’s son when all the fortifications were completed. Four gun mounts aiming southwards and one at the very end protected against sea-based approaches while another five gun mounts were aimed more northerly in order to coordinate crossfire with Castle Cornet against more direct approaches to the capital city.

The battery was in very good condition with most of the various mountings, rails, and pivots for the guns pretty much as they were a couple of hundred years ago. During the German occupation of Guernsey in World War II some minor modifications were made to Clarence Battery and it served as part of the Luftwaffe’s early warning system.

Clarence Battery is free to enter and and only needs a few minutes of your time to look around. The views from the headland were absolutely lovely. It can be found at the top of a set of steps directly above the Guernsey Aquarium which would be our next stop.

The only aquarium in the Channel Islands has been refurbished throughout to create a unique, authentic attraction and venue, with a new focus on local marine fish and life. Re-branded as The Aquarium, Guernsey’s new underwater experience is housed in tunnels used by the Germans during the Occupation years as a store.

While I’d already ascertained that the aquarium would be on our planned walking route along the island’s coastline prior to taking our cruise on the Sapphire Princess I hadn’t checked the opening times (mostly because we hadn’t intended to visit it) and wasn’t certain that it would be open with it being fairly early in the tourist season and a Sunday. As it turns out, the aquarium opens daily from 10:00 until 17:00.

Upon entry and payment (£5 each for adults, £3 for children (not that there were any of those things with us)) we first noticed the sign above the nearest of the numerous fish tanks.

As previously quoted from the official website, Guernsey Aquarium boasts that it is the world’s only tunnel aquarium, used by Germans during the Second World War. Okay, that’s a pretty niche claim but I suppose a little bit of that sort of marketing doesn’t hurt.

As the aquarium has a fair bit of focus on local fish as opposed to more exotic, tropical sorts there was a slightly different feel to this aqaurium than others we’ve visited (and we do tend to visit a lot). My wife started remarking as she moved from tank to tank along one of the tunnels how tasty some of the fish looked and wondered if the building moonlighted as a seafood restaurant.

Some of the fish tanks were quite quirky with decor that included sea mines or action figures and there were some animatronic additions such as clams that would open and release bubbles. Sadly, the curse of aquariums and their low light requiring me to take photos at high ISO prevented any of the pictures of clams and bubbles from being good enough to share.

The aquarium isn’t the largest one or the most impressive one you’ll ever visit but it’s not that expensive and it was good to get out of the sun for a bit while we were there (we also bought a raspberry slushie in the gift shop to try to rehydrate a little bit and gave ourselves the lasting memory of a huge sugar rush and ice headaches). It won’t take you long to look around what it has to offer but I think it’s worth a nose, especially if you’ve got kids who like these sorts of places.

Although La Valette Museum was built in the 1940s (originally to securely store U-boat fuel that was otherwise at risk of RAF bombing raids) the museum itself covers a far wider range of military history of Guernsey. It’s not a huge museum by any means but there are plenty of things in various display cases along the walls of the tunnels to look at and if you’re keen on buying war memorabilia there seemed to be an awful lot of things available to purchase too.

One of the most interesting aspects of the visit to La Valette was seeing how the German occupation altered the way of life for the Channel Islanders. It’s well worth reading some of the rule changes – road signs, licencing for selling produce, who could sell to German soldiers, etc. – and newspaper accounts from an occupied location. There were parts of this that triggered memories of hearing from our battlefields tour guide in the Falkland Islands back in 2016 explaining about the Argentinian occupation of 1982.

I imagine with a lot of people visiting it could get a little uncomfortable in the museum complex both from a claustrophobia perspective (the connecting tunnel in particular is fairly narrow) and from a temperature perspective (while the museum is air-conditioned we both felt it was a little stifling during our visit with perhaps only a dozen other people present, although we might have still been recovering from our exertions along the coastal path earlier). However, the entry price was reasonable and it was a museum that certainly seemed to hold the attention of some very knowledgeable kids visiting with their parents so I’d not hesitate in recommending this if you’re visiting Guernsey’s capital city at any point and there’s someone in your group who wants to take a good, close look at wartime knives, swords, guns, or – in my wife’s case – uniforms, hats, and helmets.

Simply by keeping the water on our right side as we walked we hugged the shoreline past the harbour area, attractive under the sun and light haze of the day.

Castle Cornet was built in the first half of the 13th century. Originally, Guernsey was part of the Duchy of Normandy so following on from William I’s successful conquest of England in 1066 it and the other Channel Islands were ruled over by the king of England. That changed in 1202 when the French king declared Normandy forfeit and seized it from King John. Over half a century of battles took place over the disputed region until King Henry III signed the Treaty of Paris in 1259 which gave up the Normandy region except for the Channel Islands. Invasions of Guernsey continued, though, for centuries with the island and the castle (most of the time) changing ownership between the French and English numerous times and having its fortifications steadily improved as the years passed.

The castle was one of the most irregular structures of its sort that we’ve visited. Buildings inside its walls were at different levels, of different designs, and there seemed to be not a lot of thought to its planning, evidence of the way in which it had evolved its defences since first construction. Making our way around, therefore, involved a lot of going over parts of the castle’s interior several times looking for areas we’d missed. Fortunately, Castle Cornet is not too large and this was no major hardship.

Views from the topmost areas of the castle were lovely thanks largely to the lovely weather we had during our day in Guernsey. It was particularly nice to look out and see our cruise ship, Sapphire Princess, and the steady run of tender boats taking people to and from the island.

There were several museums and some small gardens in the castle grounds which were pleasant if not exactly incredible. For the very reasonable entry fee, though, Castle Cornet is definitely worth a visit if you’re in St Peter Port.

With our visit to Castle Cornet out of the way we made ourselves along the waterfront and its marina in order to see what might grab our attention in St Peter Port itself as up until this point we’d been exploring south of the city.

One of the reasons we’d chosen to head off away from St Peter Port in the first place was because we’d arrived on the island on a Sunday and with it being small we’d suspected that much of the city would be closed. This turned out to be mostly correct and there were only a few open shops and nothing that grabbed our attention as we hit the streets one or two back from the waterfront. There wasn’t even much of interest architecturally and I only grabbed a few shots of anything here.

We ended up hitting a few pubs in search of some local ales (and anyone who knows us knows this is not a surprising turn of events) and even had an unexpected and very pleasant conversation with the bar staff in one of them regarding the Flying Spaghetti Monster following some confusion over my Cthulhu t-shirt. Didn’t expect that to happen when we woke up that morning on board the cruise ship.

A few more photos of the marina on the way back to the tender boats (where we timed our arrival almost perfectly for just stepping on and heading straight back to the ship) concludes our very enjoyable (if you forget about Marie injuring herself on the coastal walk to the Ozanne Steps) first visit to any of the Channel Islands.

We liked what we saw of St Peter Port and there’s still a fair bit to explore of the rest of the island at some point so we’d be happy to return. The only problem with cruises is planning what to do when you get there as disembarkation is not guaranteed due to the unsheltered harbour and high tidal range so it might be a location best visited more deliberately, flying in and spending a few days, perhaps.

Guernsey In The 1980s

By way of comparison with the photos I’ve taken on our visit to Guernsey I’m now including scans of photos of my dad and a family friend, Nabil, visiting Guernsey themselves in the 1980s. I think it’s really interesting to see the unchanged and changed parts of St Peter Port in the photographs above and below.

The morning had started very well for us – if you’ve read the previous post then you’ll already know that we had the utter joy of experiencing some unexpected dolphin-watching from our cruise ship balcony – and with the weather appearing to be bright but not too hot (just how we like it) we took the tender boat from Arcadia across to the mainland and started our walk. Our previous visit to St Peter Port had taken us generally south of the city along the cliffs and exploring the castles and other fortifications and museums in that direction. For this trip we headed due north along the shoreline instead. Checking maps we knew that northwards and slightly inland there were some gardens; we didn’t know how interesting they would be nor whether there would be anything else to see there other than greenery and flowers but it was a general target to head towards.

Candie Gardens

The gardens we were heading for were the Candie Gardens.

[The] restored Victorian Candie Gardens offer spectacular views across St Peter Port harbour and our sister islands of Herm, Sark and Jethou, along with a rare example of a late 19th century public flower garden. They are home to the oldest known heated glass-houses in the British Isles, which date back to the late eighteenth century. In the gardens, aside from the beautiful flowers, lawns, and fish ponds, you will find a museum, art gallery, and a cafe housed in a Victorian bandstand.

At the entrance there was a handy map of the gardens’ layout and we decided from this that we would walk the upper garden area first then come back through the lower garden before returning to our somewhat anticlockwise wander around St Peter Port.

Entering the upper garden we were drawn firstly to the statue of Victor Hugo (unveiled in the gardens in 1914) and then to the view over the waters off St Peter Port that showed both our cruise ship Arcadia and the CMV cruise ship Magellan at anchor.

The reason for Victor Hugo’s statue being on the island was that he spent 15 years living there in exile. During his time on Guernsey he wrote Les Miserables, among others.

Passing the bandstand we then noticed that the Guernsey Museum was open (for some reason we hadn’t thought it would be) and it was hosting a Geek Weekend. As somewhat geeky people ourselves we had to take a look and spent an engaging half an hour looking through the rooms that had been set up to show off model railways, amateur radio systems, wargaming, fantasy clothing, and collections of Star Trek spacecraft. We spent quite a while talking to the railway expert even though it’s not something that really interests us normally; there’s something infectious about listening to someone talk about what they love, though. Because there were quite a few families with young children around I put away my camera and didn’t take any photos. I don’t have a cast-iron rule about taking pictures when children are present but generally speaking, and certainly if indoors rather than out in public, I lean towards not triggering someone’s unfounded fear and protective instincts in favour of a quiet life. In addition to the rooms for the geeks we checked out the main museum areas too, some of which was very interesting indeed, especially the parts describing local folklore and the island’s own language.

Back outside we then took a walk through the lower gardens. While the upper gardens were mostly just lawn and borders the lower gardens were an explosion of flowering colours.

Exiting Candie Gardens we started heading southwards as there was nothing apparently of interest north or west from our location. St Peter Port is on a hill so we were some way back from the shore and the main part of the city and quite high up at this point. We took a meandering route that set us towards another garden on the map, the Sunken Garden, but this turned out to not look that exciting as we approached so we made do with a couple of photos and carried on our way.

We found ourselves at the top of the Clifton Steps and decided that this would be a good place to descend towards the centre of St Peter Port in search of something interesting. The steps were pretty steep and I certainly wouldn’t want to walk up them very often but they did provide some occasional lovely views out across the harbour.

Golden Lion Pub

At the bottom of the steps it had been our hastily-made plan by this point to head off in search of Victor Hugo’s house since we’d seen the statue in Candie Gardens and knew it wasn’t far away but it had just turned noon and we found ourselves right by the Golden Lion pub which was just opening. A quick glance at each other and we decided without speaking to pop in for a quick drink before carrying on. This turned out to be a good move on our part as the bar staff were incredibly friendly and knowledgeable about local ales, ciders, and gin, all things we like even when they’re not local but which we will go out of our way to experience when we’re travelling somewhere new. Not only did we get to see and hear about all the local offerings we tried them all too thanks to third-pint sampling paddles. Sitting outside in the sunshine initially our paddles attracted some attention from other visitors to the island and we tried to persuade them to try some drinks inside too but I’m not sure that they did. We used our samples to choose our favourites for a larger drink and have that inside once the heat trap outside the pub became too much and it was here that we realised that Victor Hugo’s house was closed so… we stayed for one more round. And another.

St Peter Port Harbour

Eventually, we decided we’d take a quick look along the St Peter Port harbour area before taking the tender boat back to Arcadia. Whether this was a regular occurrence or not I can’t say but there was a market taking place by the waterfront so we wandered up and down it for a few minutes before spending some of our Guernsey money change on a locally-written-and-illustrated children’s folktales book referencing some of the local creatures of mythology we’d read some details of previously in the Guernsey Museum in Candie Gardens. Just to be clear, the book was a gift for my niece. We then headed to where we would need to pick up the tender, stopping for some photos of the boats in the harbour as there’s something very appealing about boats in calm waters under clear blue skies.

All that then remained was to board the tender and commence the 10-minute ride back to our waiting cruise ship.

At some point I’m sure we’ll visit St Peter Port and the rest of Guernsey on a day other than Sunday and while it’s true that we didn’t get up to an awful lot on this visit we had seen and done plenty on our previous visit to the island’s capital back in May so feel perfectly fine with this. It would be nice to see what other attractions there are in the city during a normal working day and Victor Hugo’s house is still on our list of places to visit plus there are plenty of places on the rest of Guernsey we haven’t even touched on yet.