It took until September of this year for us to take a week off work and leave the house, a previously nearly-unimaginable period of time without somewhere foreign to titillate the senses. That week was a break to the West Country, an area with which we’re reasonably familiar – our very first trip away together as a couple was to Cornwall – but this would be to places we’d not visited before. The first three days saw us staying in Plymouth, considered a sister-city to our home of Portsmouth because of its naval dockyard connections, and a city we’d therefore expected to be quite similar. Yeah, not so much, as it turns out.

This post will cover our first day in Plymouth.

Roadworks for long stretches didn’t have too much of an impact on our travelling time along the coast, thankfully, and we only made a single wrong turning (albeit a fortuitous one that got us to where we needed to be faster) in Devon’s largest city before arriving at the New Continental Hotel. We picked it because the location was pretty good and on-site parking for the three days we’d be there was very cheap. A very friendly check-in and explanation of some of the COVID-19 rules in place – masks on outside the room, one person at a time in the elevator, don’t lick the banisters; sensible stuff – was followed by us quickly finding our room on the second floor. The room was a very good size; no view to speak of but we weren’t there for the view. Our only criticism of the room was the heat which was toasty and uncomfortably so after walking up the stairs with masks on as we did each time we returned to the hotel. There was no air conditioning and the window was left open all the time to counter that. Luckily, the area was a quiet one, helped by Plymouth’s plentiful cameras keeping traffic speed and noise low.

We decided to have a quick walk to get a feel for the immediate surroundings and get our bearings sorted ahead of making for the harbour area on the east side of the city. This was our introduction to just how different from Portsmouth that Plymouth was. Portsmouth may be surrounded by hills but the city is flat. Plymouth, on the other hand, seems mostly to have been placed on the large hill that forms most of it, then slid off or been pushed off around and behind it by the impressively imposing Royal Citadel fortfications. We’d expected something familiar – a seaside town with naval connections – but we’d found ourselves on a fortified rock with quays and marinas, and the bulk of the commercial and residential properties blocked from any view of the sea by that hilly mass on its southern edge. I know that you can’t see the sea from a hundred metres back from it in Portsmouth either but just being at or near sea-level gives you a closer connection in my opinion. That feeling of being slightly disconnected from the water thanks to the Royal Citadel and Hoe Park dominating the high land of Plymouth remained with us throughout our stay.

As mentioned, the Royal Citadel did look very impressive and we had a quick check online to see about taking a look around, but restrictions on what was accessible and the need to book well ahead of the visit due to the virus put us off. Incidentally, that need to pre-book – and we understand it for popular places at popular times – would prove to be a major hindrance during our late-September, West Country break; museums, pubs, and restaurants made casual visiting a chore. Do you know when you’ll be somewhere you’ve never been before? Do you know how long you’ll be? Well, we didn’t. Down to the harbour we went.

We arrived at the spot near the Mayflower Steps Memorial, waterside, at the southern end of Sutton Harbour, and noticed a swing bridge that allows pedestrians to cross more quickly to the aquarium when yachts and other boats weren’t entering or exiting the area. You’ll be able to read about our visit to the aquarium when I cover our last day in Plymouth. It was to the Plymouth Boat Trips ticket booth that we headed, however, in order to book ourselves on the final harbour boat cruise of the evening due to take place within the hour. Under a tenner each and lasting ninety minutes with a free drink included, this would be the “Summer Sundowner“, not quite coinciding with sunset for our visit, and somewhat scuppered by cloud cover anyway. It was, however, something we didn’t have to pre-book and a chance for us to get out onto the water for the first time in 2020. Did you know we like to cruise? We don’t like to mention it.

Our catamaran arrived and we boarded. There was seating downstairs, inside, plus seating on the top, exposed to the wind. Almost everyone headed up top because that’s what sensible people do and as we were the second people to board we snagged a prime spot right at the back with views not obscured by other passengers. Restrictions to prevent COVID-19 transmission meant that masks had to be worn at all times, even outside (which seemed a bit over-the-top, but whatever), but other than meaning I had to remember not to breathe out just before taking a photo if I didn’t want to fog up the viewfinder this didn’t prove to be much of a pain.

Plymouth is effectively a bit of land between two rivers, these being the Tamar to the west and the Plym to the east. Out boat trip would take us out past the mouth of the Plym with the area opposite Plymouth across the Plym known as Mount Batten. Mount Batten has a breakwater jutting out from it and on that breakwater during our visit there was an art installation. This was Speedwell, built as part of the four-hundredth celebration of the Mayflower‘s sailing to America. Comprising over three and half thousand LEDs, the installation flashes one of nine combinations of words designed to reflect the New World that the pilgrims hoped to find, the fact that it wasn’t really a New World at all as it was inhabited, and that for Speedwell the voyage didn’t even take place, amongst other things. Surprisingly interesting and even mesmerising at times, and we’d get a better view on the way back from the harbour cruise as the light was fading and the artwork became more prominent.

Our boat had a bar on the lower deck; small, but with a reasonable selection of wines, spirits, and beers. As mentioned, the harbour cruise tickets we had entitled us to a free drink and we decided to go with some Prosecco. If we were on a proper cruise ship it’d be champagne but you work with what you have. If plastic tumblers of fizz and a wake view are all 2020’s allowing us to have then so be it.

Our boat proceeded south as far as the Plymouth Breakwater which it then proceeded to slowly pass alongside. This brought us up close with the Plymouth Breakwater Fort, one of the Palmerston Forts built in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The first ones were built near Portsmouth (because we’re more important) so we were very familiar with them and their intended purpose, as well as the ultimate waste of time and money it took to construct them.

Close to the fort we passed RFA Tiderace at anchor. Tiderace is a fast fleet tanker and a fairly modern one at that.

The breakwater had interesting elements at each end of it. We’d already passed the eastern end where a beacon was mounted, comprising a spherical cage atop a structure. This had originally been designed as a refuge for shipwrecked sailors and tells you a lot about the mindset of people in the nineteenth century. The western end was marked by a lighthouse, operational from 1844.

Our gentle, clockwise cruise around Plymouth Harbour next took us past the landmass to the southwest which included Mount Edgcumbe. This was Cornwall we were passing as Plymouth is situated right on the Devon/Cornwall border. Mount Edgcumbe is a landscaped park and woodland with Grade I listed gardens. We wouldn’t visit it during our short stay in the area but the gentle hills and follies we saw looked very attractive even under the cool, grey skies.

Opposite Mount Edgcumbe, as the boat turned around in the mouth of the Tamar, we saw the impressive architecture of the Royal William Yard buildings. Even had we not known about Plymouth’s naval heritage we would have immediately recognised the style of building associated with the Admiralty, again thanks to living in Portsmouth. Built between 1826 and 1835 and designed by architect John Rennie the Younger, Royal William Yard was constructed from local limestone and granite and served as the major victualling depot of the Royal Navy. Much like the Palmerston Forts, however, Royal William Yard never really fulfilled its intended purpose as not long after construction was completed the requirements of the navy changed. These days the area is another former-military establishment turned into restaurants and bars with sea views and historical landmarks, and if we’d had one more day in Plymouth then we would have explored it but our time was too limited on this occasion

The final site of interest in Plymouth Harbour that we’d not seen was St Nicholas Island, or as it’s become more commonly known since the late sixteenth cenury, Drake’s Island, in honour of Sir Francis Drake who had strong connections with the Devonshire city. The rock of the island is a mixture of ejected lava and limestone and the island served as the focal point for the defence of Plymouth for many centuries. Barracks and batteries have occupied the location and numerous plans have been put forward to build hotels on the space since its sale by the Crown but its current disposition is due to be that of a museum and heritage centre once the world sees the back of this pesky virus and things get back to near-normality.

All that remained of our hour and a half out in Plymouth Sound on a boat was to head back towards Sutton Harbour. This took us past Plymouth Hoe with its own lighthouse (you can never have too many) and war monuments around which we’d have a walk a couple of days later.

We had another chance to gaze at the Speedwell art installation on Mount Batten breakwater as our harbour boat cruise came to an end.

To finish off our first few hours in Plymouth we sought out somewhere to eat and drink. Eating proved to be difficult thanks to it being a Saturday night during a pandemic when everywhere wants you to book a table in advance. As I’ve already mentioned, this is not a policy that lends itself to casual travelling, and, although there’s an argument that this is a good thing when the world is under attack at the microscopic level, it’s a smidge inconvenient for visitors if you’re trying to keep the economy running. After a couple of “Did you book a table? Ah…” responses we eventually found a friendly welcome, pizza, beer, and cider at The Plymouth Stable. And some gorgeous views across the waterfront to the main harbour area of the city as the light faded from the sky was a bonus.

The pub we concluded our evening in was The Cider House which, as its name implies, specialised in ciders. There were over a dozen available which pleased my wife a lot but we limited ourselves to just a couple because we’d be heading out fairly early the following day to see the Eden Project, and you’ll be able to read about that in the next post from this West Country series.

The Eden Project opened in early 2001. The location is a former clay pit and if you want to see what it looked like before the tourist attraction was constructed then take a look at the 1981 BBC series The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy at any scenes on the planet Magrathea. The Eden Project primarily consists of a number of geodesic domes forming two distinct biomes. Around this are winding paths through an attractive landscape filled with gardens and artworks.

In normal times (remember them?) you’d be free to wander the paths at will but with these being times decidedly different all visitors needed to obey a one-way route. Looking at the Eden Project map above, we would enter via the visitor centre at the bottom and head to the left, following the pale cream path as it zig-zagged down the interior of the former pit, then taking a mostly clockwise route around the attraction through the Rainforest Biome, the Mediterranean Biome, then the Invisible Worlds exhibition before returning to where we came in.

Stepping out of the visitor centre our first sight was of the biomes from a viewing platform. A sign asking that people socially-distance and limit themselves to one group at a time on the platform was being followed but there was still some pain from those on the platform ahead of us who stood and gazed for minutes before taking some selfies, blissfully uncaring about the queue of people waiting to take a look for themselves. Naturally, we were onto the platform and snapping shots, glancing around, then back off inside thirty seconds because we’re more considerate.

We started along the Wild Edge trail which wasn’t a single route but one that provided occasional branches to skip a small section of it. For those with certain mobility issues or just in a rush to get to the domes these would shave a couple of minutes off the walk which otherwise provided more lovely views into the hollow in the landscape and was lined with plant-life and the odd structure every now and then: bee hives, Korean totems, viewing spots, unexplained sticks, etc.

Our decision to visit the Eden Project roughly followed this discussion:

Ooh, the Eden Project isn’t too far from Plymouth.

Cool. Let’s go.

As you can see, research was lacking, other than to notice the banner on the attraction’s website which demanded pre-booking. As a result we didn’t really know what we’d find during our trip and hadn’t expected to discover so many pieces of art dotted around. The first of these was one we almost walked past, thinking it was the stripped bark of a birch tree until reading the sign nearby. This is Cores by local artist Jenny Beavan and is actually made from ceramic.

Interesting sights from nature were also present along the gentle, sloping walk towards the biomes as the Eden Project has planted a variety of plants thriving in sheltered conditions and a number of hardy plants from other climates to see how they cope with the generally mild and increasingly warmer environment experienced in the West Country region of England.

A second piece of art sculpture, Industrial Plant by David Kemp, brought a smile to many faces as people passed.

Our day visiting the Eden Project was a warm one so we were glad of any chance for shade. One of the final distractions on the walking route down to the domes was a spot called the Willow Dream Chamber where the trees and arrangement of them formed a cool, almost eerily quiet location. There were markings on the ground to follow a labyrinthine path if you wished and another of the Eden Project’s artworks was present nearby. This was Eve, by siblings Peter and Sue Hill, a living sculpture made from clay, decorated with mirrors, and planted with seeds to grow like some kind of huge Chia Pet.

Our walk brought us to the area on the map marked as the Stage where we took a quick detour to the Link between the two biomes in order to pick up some water (that we’d stupidly forgotten to bring with us) from the dining facilities there. Another sculpture caught our eyes, this being Bombus the Giant Bee by Robert Bradford. Made from steel, plywood, and cedar it’s a piece with obvious connections to the Eden Project as a whole, being nature’s most famous pollinator and set amongst the giant honeycomb-like structures of the domes.

Rehydrated, we completed the final stretch of zig-zagging path – this time heading upwards – towards the first and largest of the biomes.

The Rainforest Biome is the largest of the two biomes in the Eden Project. Like its smaller sibling it consists of four domes merged together with one large, one small, and two medium domes. You don’t notice the different domes once you’re inside, though, and are instead taken aback by the sounds of the rainforest environment and people wandering through within an enclosed space. Covid restrictions were in place, however, so exploring the biomes was strictly done in a one-way, socially-distanced manner and because this was inside – despite entrance doors and some windows in the domes being open – masks were required. We did have some fears ahead of the visit that this might prove to be somewhat of an encumbrance whilst in a simulated tropical environment but both biomes were actually less sweat-inducing than expected. This is not to say that there wasn’t some perspiration, especially when reaching the higher levels of the biome, and for my wife this did cause constant glasses-fogging problems, but we otherwise endured without too much issue. The same can’t be said for some people in attendance who clearly thought that masks were an option. Yes, I know that some people might have invisible reasons for not wearing masks but surely they wouldn’t have them strapped to their chins if that were the case; and just what are the odds that an entire family shouting and not keeping their distance like everyone else should all have super-secret health issues that mean none of them can wear masks but they’re all capable of yelling and laughing while traipsing up slopes and steps in high humidity? Any group of people will contain selfish pricks, of course, but the Eden Project could have done a better job of enforcing their rules here, in my opinion.

Eden Project’s Rainforest Biome actually incorporates four different tropical environments – islands, Southeast Asia, West Africa, and South America – but unless you’re very familiar with the flora of each of those geographic locations you’ll not notice you’re moving from one to the other. Generally, a walk through one of the biomes is a case of following the footprints on the paths and passing by lots of lush greenery.

The Rainforest Biome includes a few pieces of artwork, with the first important one being Aziza Gate by Ghanaian artist El Anatsui. The greenheart wood from which these totems were carved came from Africa and were used in the construction of Falmouth docks before being damaged by fire, and the piece therefore connects colonialism and appropriation and the effects of humans on the environment.

We made our way up to the elevated walkways through the rainforest canopy and stepped across the rope bridge because we could. In the video towards the end of this post you can see footage of the walk over the bridge and get a little feel for how much it bounced and swayed. All good fun.

The upper walkways in the Rainforest Biome bought us up close with two more points of interest. The first of those was the waterfall which is fed by rainwater collected and stored at the Eden Project.

Secondly, was another series of artworks. These were the Vegetalistas Paintings. Peruvian herbalists Don Francisco Montes Shuna and Yolanda Panduro Baneo created these murals to illustrate a mythological interpretation of the medicinal values of some of the plants. This is not to say that these plants necessarily have any healing properties, of course, but the imagery was pleasant to look at and the stories behind the paintings make for interesting reading.

Our one-way walk brought us back down from the canopy of the rainforest and past some colour in the form of attractive flowering plants towards the exit.

Between the two biomes was an enclosed area with some shops, toilets, and seating inside and out for those wishing to eat. It’s possible to bring your own food into the Eden Project and enjoy a picnic in this location although, of course, the facility would much prefer you buy while you’re there and help to support its ongoing costs; just something to bear in mind, though. We made use of the toilets and picked up some more water before continuing through to the second of the biomes.

The Mediterranean Biome has a misleading name as it encompasses the temperate climate associated with the Mediterranean but also includes flora you’d find in California and Australia and South Africa and Chile too. A wine-loving biome, in other words. As you can probably guess, there was a lot less all-encompassing green in this set of domes and the humidity was lower, although there were fewer openings to the exterior and it was smaller so it didn’t actually feel any less warm inside. There was a lot more variety in things to catch the eye, whether naturally-growing like the grasses and flowers or man-made like the tiled paths and walls.

Cacti (or cactuses, depending on whether you’re feeling Latin or English today) have always appealed to me. I think it may be because they seem hardy enough to be able to survive the likelihood of me forgetting to feed them. I don’t actually own a cactus, though, because the guilt associated with succeeding in killing something typically able to survive decades of drought in extreme heat would be too much to bear.

A large, commissioned artwork titled The Rites of Dionysus dominated a mound of earth in the centre of the Mediterranean Biome. Dionysus, represented by the bull, along with his followers, the Maenads, dancing and playing instruments among the grape vines growing are constructed from bronze and were designed by Tim Shaw.

There were also some sculptures of animals made from cork dotted around. These were made by Heather Jansch. Cork is an interesting wood in that the trees don’t die when the bark is cut off so the use of cork fits with the ethos of the Eden Project as a whole in being sustainable.

There was plenty more to see and occupy us for a few more hours if we’d wanted to, or rather if we’d been able to. Sadly, my wife had picked up a new and exciting injury to her leg during the walk through the first of the biomes, and while she was trying to walk it off and soldier on regardless it was becoming clear that it wasn’t getting any better. We decided we’d take a quick – well, gentle and sluggish, more accurately – stroll through the gardens and take a peek at the Core on a general route towards the exit, acutely aware that everywhere from here on was also in a slightly upwards direction. We’re not fans of up when it comes to walking.

The gardens were spectacularly colourful and well-designed, and it was great to be able to take the masks off and enjoy the fresh air of a lovely day in Cornwall.

The Core building – based on the shape of a sunflower – hosts a number of exhibits grouped together under the name Invisible Worlds which you might be able to surmise refers to the microscopic elements of nature and how it all affects the world. With our visit to the Eden Project taking place during the pandemic only a couple of things were accessible and we missed one of those. What we did see, however, was the Infinity Blue sculpture; part art, part science exhibit, built from ceramic, and based on the cyanobacteria, this impressively large and relaxing piece of work breathes out smoke rings, representing the oxygen-generation that triggered huge changes across the planet between two and three billion years ago. The video (temporarily removed) after the following couple of pictures shows the scale of the artwork and it in action.

And that brought our several hours exploring the Eden Project to an end. All that remained was a sloping, zig-zagging walk up through the exit and back to the car park with more views of the domes and just one mildly unpleasant moment with a spider sculpture emerging from the side of the path.

Even during lockdown there’s plenty to see and do in the Eden Project but the wearing of masks inside the biomes is something to consider. Our tickets do allow us to return for free within a year which admittedly seems unlikely to happen but should we find ourselves there again then we wouldn’t be averse to having a wander through the gardens and biomes once more; just to appreciate the abundance of plantlife without fogging up glasses and needing to not breathe while taking photos, though, this would be something we’d much rather do once restrictions are lifted.

The end of our day in Cornwall saw us back in Devon and in search of something to eat and drink. Covid restrictions had already played a part on our first evening in Plymouth and there was an impact at the hotel too with the attached brasserie only being open for room delivery on a Sunday evening. We didn’t really fancy the idea of sitting on the bed or by the dressing table with a plate each so were already looking at eating in the city, but we also knew that attempts to wander into dining establishments the night before hadn’t been too successful on account of the need to book ahead. A few minutes searching on the phone, however, located us a bar a few minutes away doing basic pub food that could be booked online, and that won our custom because if I’ve got to pick between booking over the web and booking over the phone then the web will be victorious every time. Talk to a human? Me? The very thought!

Obviously, Wetherspoon’s was not an option. We have standards which may not be high but they’re not so low as to support the likes of that business.

We booked a table at Revolution Plymouth, wandered over, and discovered that we had the entire venue to ourselves and probably needn’t have bothered with all that searching and reserving anyway. No big deal. Burgers and fries satisfied our need to eat and we washed that down with ale and cider before discovering the cocktail menu. We had seats, we were indoors, and we wouldn’t have any trouble getting served so it seemed wrong to leave before taste-testing what was on offer. Everything was perfectly fine and I was apparently the first person to ever order a Manhattan for the barmaid to make.

It was getting dark when we left Revolution which gave us the chance to see the nearby Theatre Royal colourfully-illuminated and the somewhat menacing sculpture adopting a three-point stance outside it as we headed for somewhere else.

That somewhere else ended up being The Ship which was full inside but had plenty of tables at which we could plonk ourselves down outside by the harbour. Social distancing was enforced by only allowing patrons to sit on alternate tables. Because we’d distracted the barman with a quick chat as he was pouring drinks we ended up getting a pint instead of a half for my wife at no extra cost. We offered to pay the difference because it was clearly a genuine mistake but we were waved away. The pleasant view, ability to order from the table and appealing-looking food options, and friendliness of the barman ensured that we’d make a return visit to this pub on the following day too.

The final Plymouth pub of the evening for us was the Cider House which we’d hit on our first evening in the city too. Small, quiet, and with a fabulous range of boxed ciders, it’s the sort of place you almost have to have a drink in if you’re visiting the West Country.

Our next day in Plymouth (covered in the next post in this series) would be our last before making our way along the coast towards Weymouth to complete this week’s break.

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.

It was busy in Sidmouth when we arrived. The roads are narrow and pedestrians and other road traffic were plentiful. After two unsuccessful attempts to find car parking nearer the town’s shops we ended up at Manor Road Long Stay Car Park, necessitating a walk down Peak Hill Road towards and along the seafront (with the unwelcome promise of a walk back up the road to return to the car later).

Our walk initially took us past a couple of thatched cottages and it was here that we saw the first of what would turn out to be a lot of blue plaques in Sidmouth. If you have the time you could probably walk around and find them all. One of the cottages was likely the first building to be constructed in this part of the town (officially Clifton) while the other was, for a while, the home of an American member of the Chubb lock-making family. Not the hugest claim to fame but an indication of how proud the locals are of Sidmouth in general, and the plaques themselves are part of an annual community dividend from a Canadian millionaire’s bequeathment.

The Victoria Hotel opposite the cottages was built in the early years of the twentieth century and boasted modern facilities such as en suite bathrooms which attracted visitors along with its views over the water. Over the years it has hosted famous literati such as Sir John Betjeman and George Bernard Shaw, and indeed Sidmouth has many connections with the writing world, featuring in works by Thomas Hardy, Beatrix Potter, and H.G. Wells amongst others. In addition to literature Sidmouth has a royal history with Victoria as a baby spending time in the town with her family in 1819. Much of Sidmouth’s growth from a fishing village came during the surge in popularity of seaside resorts during Georgian and Regency periods.

To the Sidmouth shoreline then since that’s the title of this post. We are – and you’ll know this already if you’re familiar with my writing and pictures – very fond of the sea, and it’s a rare thing for us to travel and not spend time beside it or on it in some fashion. If a town or city has a beach and we’re passing then we’ll almost certainly take a look. As you can tell from the photos below the weather had changed quite a bit from the clear skies of the previous days. The ambient temperature wasn’t too bad but the wind was occasionally fierce, churning up the water and adding even more murkiness to its colour than was being reflected from the cloud cover above.

The prominent red colouration you can see in the cliffs and the beach is an indicator of Sidmouth’s location along what is known as the Jurassic Coast. Despite the name, this is a part of the English coastline that exposes a lot of geology from the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods of history, and it’s the first of those – the Triassic – that was a particularly hot and dry period and which is the source of that particular hue of rock.

Sidmouth does suffer from erosion and has had several failed attempts to construct harbours in its history due to its exposed location. There were, however, some jetties jutting out from the town and acting to protect the beach from losing its sand and stones as much as possible.

Reaching the end of the esplanade at the eastern end of Sidmouth beach allowed us to get up close to the mouth of the River Sid from where the town gets its name and to see some of the cliffs that form part of the southwest coast path walking trail. The bridge that forms the start of the trail was a recent replacement for another that had been constructed in the early twentieth century, itself replacing one that had been fashioned from the timbers of a wrecked vessel half a century earlier.

That concluded our look along the seafront at Sidmouth so we took a wander through the town’s streets next to see what it had to offer apart from views of the water. It all seemed pleasant enough and it was easy to imagine even with the partial lockdown in operation just how lively the place would be in the height of a normal summer, but there wasn’t a huge amount to see and nothing to really do on this short stop; we found the local museum but it was shut. We did go to a pub to avail ourselves of the need for a loo break and to rehydrate for the remainder of the south coast drive to come.

Our final walk through Sidmouth before heading back to the car was along a path that took us through the grounds of St Giles & St Nicholas’ Church and towards Blackmore Gardens. The church tower is medieval, dating to the fifteenth century, but the rest of the building was rebuilt in the latter half of the nineteenth century and includes an assortment of styles in the design. One of the church’s windows was donated by Queen Victoria in 1867. The nearby gardens were spacious and had some fancy topiary and flowers. Like the rest of Sidmouth this felt like it would be a place of pleasing interest and vibrancy in a normal year.

Sidmouth did have a feel of the classic Victorian seaside resort, although it was a little on the small side. That said, it seemed like a great location to base daytime exploration along the Jurassic coast with enough pubs and that all-important sea view to make for good evenings afterwards. We’d consider it if we were thinking of visiting this part of the UK in the future.

Our rest stop in Sidmouth at an end we set off for the next segment of our 2020 UK break in the West Country and our first visit to Weymouth which will be covered in the next part of this travelogue series.

The drive from Sidmouth was a bit of an adventure thanks firstly to a signpost pointing in what I said at the time was clearly the wrong direction but, since we didn’t know the roads, we ended up following anyway only to find ourselves stuck in a huge queue on a winding, dipping road for reasons unknown. I eventually took a gamble and picked a lane barely wide enough to allow our car through (they’re popular in that part of the world) and headed off on a mystery trip using my sense of direction to guide us to where we hoped we’d find a main road. I’m writing this now so you know that we didn’t find ourselves impaled on the front of a tractor coming the other way (always a risk) nor did we get waylaid in a village that time had forgotten, mistaken for witches in our mechanical contraption, and burnt at stakes kept in storage for just this sort of eventuality by the superstitious dimwits within (also a risk).

The adventure didn’t end once we reached Weymouth as our trip coincided with a series of roadworks that rendered the planned route to our hotel meaningless as we were sent off down one-way roads that turned us around several times before I could find the beach and hug its shoreline down to where the large car park near our hotel was located. It was difficult to get a hotel with car parking so we’d picked one near the Weymouth Pavilion as there was public parking outside it. This would be perfect, I reckoned, as we’d simply pay for parking and walk the hundred metres or so to the hotel. And indeed, we could have done exactly that had we not discovered that the car park took cash only. And not just any cash; coins. This trip took place in 2020. Pandemic year. It’s the year in which contactless payments became the way to pay for everything. Coins? Who the hell was carrying coins? We certainly weren’t. Thus it was that we checked the map and found a car park with modern means of paying to use it and headed there instead. This ended up being the Swannery Car Park. You can use an app to pay and extend your stay if you need to, and we did. It was great. Except… it was fifteen minutes’ walk from our hotel.

After a few, mostly lovely and warm days in Plymouth the weather had changed a bit and our time in Weymouth saw colder temperatures and a bitter wind so we walked at some pace – lugging our luggage as that’s what you’re supposed to do with it – from the car park to the Cavendish House hotel (not linked at this time as there may be a security issue on the hotel’s website, but bookable through the usual third-party sites), a bed and breakfast establishment in a terrace of similar businesses with views to the beach. We arrived out of breath, climbed the steps to the entrance, rang the bell, donned our masks, and were admitted shortly afterwards where our temperatures were checked with digital, infrared thermometers. Vacationing in the time of Covid.

I’m going to quickly talk about infrared thermometers and about my wife, and this won’t be the last time in these few days in Weymouth that this combination of subjects comes up.

Firstly: digital, infrared thermometers. They are, and there’s no nice way to say this, useless. They use technology ideally suited to picking out hot spots in a large area then make massively wrong assumptions about what this means when pointed at the forehead of a human. Yes, you’ve got a reading that tells you how much of a specific wavelength of light is being reflected from a surface but what does that mean? Have you made allowances for ambient temperature and its effects? Have you accounted for how cosmetics can alter what’s reflected or absorbed? Do you have a clue what the normal emitted temperature range of the person you’re aiming that sensor at should be? All digital thermometers do in this age of pandemic is create a means to embarrass people, to put them through steps not needed to prove they’re not plague-carriers, to be cast under suspicion, and they give a false sense of security to people who think no heat spike means you can’t possibly be contagious. As one factor in a large set of checks they can help but they’re not being used that way by Average Joe who’s running a hairdressing salon or small hotel.

Secondly: my wife. She has a very poor ability to regulate her body heat. Minor exertions can send her core temperature rocketing. When we regularly do hikes on our world travels that neither of us are remotely fit enough to attempt anyway it’s with the certain knowledge that one of us is going to be scarlet and will be attracting comments along the lines of “Holy crap! Are you having a heart attack!? Should we call for a helicopter evac?” constantly from anyone who glances our way.

Scanning our foreheads at the hotel in Weymouth we were acutely aware that I was a little puffed but that my wife was glowing from the quick walk along the seafront and clamber up the steps with bags while wearing masks. A failed reading and we’d have to head home. It was therefore quite a surprise to see that I registered at the bottom end of normal human temperature and my wife was 0.2 degrees Celsius above what’s considered hypothermia. The hotel owner looked wide-eyed at the reading, shrugged, said “Well, you definitely don’t have a temperature, I suppose”, noted it down for the record, and we were given the key to our room.

As mentioned, the Cavendish was a B&B and not the sort of place we normally stay at when we travel around the UK. I know that it’s nice to support independent business-owners (especially since the Conservative government in this country couldn’t give a fuck about them) and that smaller hotels can have a charm that’s not found in bigger establishments, but as introverts we like a more familiar and faceless experience; a perfunctory check-in; no surprises in the hotel room; spacious dining for breakfast you can be invisible in; options for evening dining or drinking on-site. There was nothing wrong with the Cavendish if you’re used to staying in these sorts of hotels in old buildings. The room was small to put it mildly but it’s just a room. The shower water pressure was pretty dreadful but we’ve experienced worse. Breakfast was perfectly fine and the hosts were perfectly pleasant. The main reason for choosing it during our Weymouth stay was simply that I quite fancied a view of the beach from the window.

I had hoped that we might be able to see some of the cruise ships anchoring off Weymouth from our room – victims of the global travel situation – and, indeed, we could. Just about. Leaning out and looking past the pavilion building and car park I’d wanted to use we could spot a few of the vessels.

It was late afternoon so we took a quick walk to get our bearings ahead of a full day exploring Weymouth to come. We started off by making our way towards the harbour entrance piers just beyond the pavilion to take a better look at the ships but the biting wind coming off the sea swiftly sent us scurrying back along the beach towards the town area.

Not far from our hotel there was a small funfair set back from the beach. It looked unwelcoming and foreboding under the overcast sky which is just how we like funfairs to feel. We wouldn’t end up visiting it during our stay in the town but it looked like it has all the creepy elements that make these places appealing and exciting. Is that game rigged? Are those targets glued down? Are these prizes toxic? Has my child been abducted? Such a thrill!

On the beach promenade we saw a sand sculpture shielded from the elements and from oiks who might want to target it for re-sculpting. A sign nearby indicated that more sculptures could be seen at a place called Sandworld elsewhere in Weymouth and we made a note to check this out later in the stay.

The beach gave us one nice view of all seven cruise ships in Weymouth Bay before the cold drove us away from the exposed location. You’ll be able to see two Cunard ships (we haven’t cruised with them yet), three Marella ships (including Discovery that we were on in 2019), and two P&O ships in the photo below (the bigger one unmistakably being Britannia that we should have cruised on earlier in the year). Bloody virus.

We were freezing by this time so looked to the option of trying to get something to eat indoors. Our experience in Plymouth during this pandemic had prepared us for the fact that this might not be easy but the first place we checked out, the Gloucester, while unable to accommodate us indoors did have outdoors seating set down from the road level and therefore protected from the wind, if not the attention of incredibly noisy seagulls. We ate, downed a drink, and took a look at what else was around a road or two back from the sea. This visit to the West Country took place after the relaxing of the first lockdown restrictions so shops had been permitted to open with precautions in place but by this time of the evening they’d all now shut so Weymouth was like a ghost town and it didn’t take a lot of convincing to persuade us to seek some comfort inside another residence run by the purveyor of alcohol beverages. That place was the House of Sounds. Music was playing, there was plenty of music-related decor to cast eyes over, and there looked to be sensible one-way directions and markings around the bar area to ensure proper social distancing was observed. Not that anyone really was following them other than us from our time there. In fact, one couple came in after us and the bloke pulled his wife roughly away from following the one-way route to drag her and stride across the shortest distance to the bar instead. People are just awful, but you know that already. Despite it not seeming to be the friendliest of places with not the most pleasant of patrons it was keeping us out of the wind so we decided to stay for a few more before calling it a night.

We concluded our first evening in Weymouth with a quick wander down to the harbour area and along Custom House Quay on a scenic route back to the hotel, relying on the alcohol inside us to protect us from the worst ravages of the temperature. In the next post in this travelogue series I’ll cover our exploration of some of Weymouth’s historic buildings; expect a fort, a castle, and a museum to feature, plus the discovery of two very good drinking establishments.

Despite not wanting to be out on Portland in inclement weather conditions we don’t generally have a problem with a little rain so we decided we’d give our legs some exercise and take in a little of the South West Coast Path, England’s longest national trail which just so happens to run through the town in which we were staying. South of our hotel and the town harbour it runs around the Nothe Peninsula and alongside Newton’s Cove and Portland Harbour. We spotted a castle marked on the map and set that as our walking destination, expecting plenty of views out to sea and plenty of cruise ships to spot from afar.

From the hotel we headed across the road to the beach and out onto the Weymouth Pier area around the Pavilion, north of the harbour entrance. We’d been able to see seven ships anchored in the bay the night before but one of the P&O vessels was notable by its absence this morning.

To get to the southern side of the harbour entrance involved a short walk along the water’s edge and across the bascule bridge that lifts periodically to allow vessels to pass in and out of the River Wey. The harbour area of Weymouth was very picturesque with buildings dating from around the seventeenth century forming the general backdrop to a variety of fishing and tourist boats. Incidentally, we did look at seeing if any of the boats were taking passengers out to see the cruise ships up close and they were but they were all booked up when we arrived. Plenty of us cruise-loving weirdos around.

The first place we planned to visit was just beyond the harbour area. Weymouth Museum was located in Brewers Quay, a very attractive building and not just because it used to be a brewery. Built near the end of Queen Victoria’s reign, the building has passed through many hands, and since it stopped making beer (boo) has housed shopping areas and dining establishments and an art gallery but nowadays is mostly vacant and will likely end up as fancy housing most people can’t afford because isn’t that what all lovely buildings eventually end up as?

Weymouth Museum was closed. This was something I’d have known if I’d read my phone correctly when I’d spotted it on the map, but we would end up visiting it on the following day which you’ll be able to read about in the next post in this travelogue series.

So… This castle and fort you want to see too… They are actually open, aren’t they?

Taking my wife’s implied “If you make me walk for ages in this weather and these things are closed I will push you from the nearest cliff” to heart I double-checked that the two other places we’d been planning to visit were really open – they were – and headed for the one farthest away first with a route that took us directly to Newton’s Cove.

Newton’s Cove is the sheltered area of water between the Nothe Peninsula and Portland Harbour, the largest man-made harbour in the world when construction was completed in 1872. Our map view hadn’t given us any reason to suspect we wouldn’t be able to walk along the northernmost of the breakwaters – the Bincleaves Groyne – that form the harbour but this wasn’t the case so we had to make do with some cruise ship-spotting from the mainland. The low cloud, blustery wind, and damp conditions in the air didn’t make for the best photography experiences, sadly.

The walking trail climbed at this point towards Bincleaves Green, an open and elevated space with views that would be particularly lovely on sunnier days but were still pleasant enough on this one.

Prominent on the green was a monument to Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, MP for Weymouth in the early nineteenth century. Fowell Buxton was a very important though lesser-known figure in abolitionism, taking over from William Wilberforce‘s lead role in that respect in Parliament and bringing to fruition the movement that had arisen to end the slave trade initially, then free the slaves. For this reason he has memorials, plaques, busts, and monuments in numerous locations around the UK, and on the five pound note featuring Elizabeth Fry, thanks to his friendship with her and his work on prison reform too, he is the leftmost man wearing glasses in the depiction of Fry reading to Newgate prisoners. I suspect that the best that the current crop of self-serving politicians in Parliament can hope for from the future will be decent likenesses among the effigies constructed and burnt during their monthly name-cursing ceremonies.

The South West Coast Path conjured up in its name a path by the coast and, while we could see that it transformed into roads for the next stretch of walking, these too, with their names Redcliff View and Belle Vue Road, led us to believe that following this national trail would be one of attractive sea vistas en route to the castle that was our destination. Well, I think you can probably guess what I’m leading up to here. It’s entirely likely that houses along the coastal side of those roads do indeed have stunning seascapes onto which their owners can gaze but for someone traipsing along the street there is but a single glimpse of water to be had in a metre-wide gap down the side of one building. We entertained ourselves along this part of the walk by coming up with new names for it, such as The South West Nothing But Houses Trail and The Brick-Lined Route Of The Imagination and, our favourite, It’s A Road.

We eventually came upon the first of the two historical Weymouth sites we planned to visit this day and initial views of the garden area in front of Sandsfoot Castle were very pleasantly surprising indeed; the explosion of colour in the flowers and the tropical feel of the palm trees on such a grey day seemed wonderfully out of place and character for the walk thus far. These gardens were originally planted in 1951 following closure of the castle to the public on safety grounds in the wake of the collapse of what had been the fortification’s gun platform.

As you can tell from the photos below, Sandsfoot Castle is not large. It is a sixteenth-century blockhouse, a single building built for defensive purposes during the reign of Henry VIII, and was in use until after the Civil War. Local people then started to remove parts of the structure for building work in the area and Sandsfoot Castle became a ruin then, thanks to the easily-eroded clay cliffs on which it was constructed, a danger to the public. The twenty-first century saw repairs made to the foundations and the addition of a raised walkway on which to view the castle in a safe manner and that is what you can see today.

We weren’t the only people braving the fine drizzle of the day to read the information boards and take a look inside a piece of history on the Dorset coast this morning, and special mention must be made of the woman in the centre of the photo below who walked in, walked straight to the viewing spot and location of an information board you can see, and proceeded to stand there and look out to sea with a coffee in her hand for close to ten minutes while the rest of us waited patiently for her to move on. Us all being sensible people who sensibly were maintaining social distancing, along with us all being British people and unfailingly reserved, nobody deigned to get close to her and shout something like “Oi! A little consideration for the rest of the visitors getting rained on out here!?” Obviously we wanted to do that but the law of the land dictates we must tut and shake our heads at one another instead and that’s precisely what we did.

As we left Sandsfoot Castle we spotted a sign for the Rodwell Trail which sounded more enticing than retracing our steps back towards town on the inappropriately-named South West Coast Path. The Rodwell Trail was very pleasant, mostly flat, and shielded from the worst of the elements by trees and bushes, and follows along the route of what was a railway line in the nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth century. Indeed, you can see remnants of the old railway line as you walk along, something that shows how quickly nature can restore the impacts of humans if allowed to do so. This trail is also purportedly home to a variety of wildlife with boards positioned along its length indicating the nearby presence of bats or butterflies or lizards; we never saw any, though.

To Nothe Fort, then. With the increasingly more important naval use of nearby Portland Harbour in the latter half of the nineteenth century it was considered necessary to build defences and Nothe Fort was the result. Despite this, it never really saw any action with the only real excitement being the firing of its rampart guns as a warning to unidentified vessels approaching during World War II that subsequently turned out to be refugees. In the 1950s Nothe Fort was effectively abandoned, sold to the council, went through a period of neglect, almost got turned into a hotel, housed civil administration nuclear shelter facilities, but eventually underwent a bit of restoration and transformation into the museum it is today.

Entering Nothe Fort puts you in the centre of a D-shaped space with the curved ramparts facing out to sea and sporting a few guns. Disabled access was very good at the fort with ramped areas and elevators. Wide-ranging views can be had and if it hadn’t been quite so exposed to freezing gusts we might have spent more time enjoying them. Of course we gazed out at the cruise ships again but we are a smidge obsessed in that respect. Not as bad as some people I could mention, mind.

The main space of the ground level of the fort felt underused to us with just a few items of interest such as an air raid shelter. Beneath the ramparts there were some rooms with displays but at this point exploring the fort we felt it was okay but nothing special.

However, there is a lower level to the fort running under the walls of it with rooms to either side and this was far more interesting. It was also far less cold and that was a real bonus on this visit. Models, maps, photos, and information posters filled many of the rooms and it would be easy to spend hours exploring this part of Nothe Fort if military history and the history of Weymouth were things that fascinated you. I personally loved the Cold War civil defence room reconstructions because the sight of a BBC computer and 5.25 inch floppy disks makes my nerd neurons fire.

Nothe Fort is certainly worth a visit if you’re passing through or staying in Weymouth but, of course, the really important question is: How do you pronounce Nothe?

Here we are then at… Nothee?.. Fort.

Is that the pronunciation you’re going with?

What do you think? Not He?

That doesn’t make any sense. “This fort: what’s his name?” “Ooh, fort not a man. Not he.”

It’s like the word “another” with missing start and end letters. ‘Nuther. “What’s this fort’s name? Don’t ask me, mate. It’s just ‘nuther fort as far I’m concerned.”

Knowth. As in “Oh yes, I knowth this fort very well. Difficult to pronounce, it is.”

Anyway, you’ll be pleased to know that one of those pronunciations is in fact correct.

Sandsfoot Castle, Nothe Fort, Rodwell Trail, and a short trek along the least interesting part of the South West Coast Path (I hope) satisfied our urge to explore some of Weymouth so the remainder of the day would be more relaxed. And yes, that is a euphemism for “mostly spent in the pub”. We started off by heading back towards the picturesque harbour area in order to cross back over the bridge to the main part of town.

First of the Weymouth pubs was the Rendezvous & Royal Oak on the harbour’s edge and with a lovely view of the bascule bridge that we got to see raise and lower while we had a drink. Drinks were ordered via an app and social distancing was observed well. Incidentally, the drinks you see below aren’t ours. They were delivered to our table, we thanked the member of staff, we poured the cider out, I took the photo, and then we realised we hadn’t ordered them. A small mix-up as a nearby table had ordered similar drinks to us. Seemed like a pretty nice pub and the staff were very friendly but we only stayed for one.

The two other pubs we discovered were so good – and very different from one another – that we would hit both of them on the following day in Weymouth too. First up, and only because my wife spotted a sandwich board in the high street indicating it was one street over, was the Doghouse Micropub. We adore micropubs and this one was lovely; one long room with seating at one end and a bar the other, plus the all-important wide range of craft ales and ciders to taste-test. As the name suggests and as one of the photos below confirms this is also a dog-friendly pub, and we saw several people turn up for drinks with their four-legged friends in attendance. We were also very impressed with the toiletries in the pub loo which included deodorant and feminine hygiene products to use freely. Definitely hit this place up if you like craft ales, dogs, or craft ales and dogs.

Because we fancied something a little more substantial than pub snacks to eat we then went in search of somewhere that would do some food along with more drinks. We knew that this wouldn’t be easy with a lot of places requiring advance bookings because of The Times In Which We Live (in fact, we made sure to book a table for a meal for the following night because of this) but we took a chance on the Nautico Lounge when we saw its website saying people could just turn up and be seated. This turned out to be a great discovery. A QR code on the table allowed for easy access to a website to order food and drink (no app download required) and panels were positioned between the well-spaced-out tables to enforce distancing. The pub itself was very attractive with a great range of food and drink on offer. We do like a cocktail (it’s a side-effect of all those cruises coupled with borderline alcoholism) and we were very happy with the available choices.

In the next post in this West Country travelogue series I’ll cover our final day in Weymouth which will see a return to some pubs, an evening meal in a restaurant on the beach, and, ahead of all that, visits to the town museum, the aquarium, plus a look at a whole lot of sand sculptures.

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.

First off, though, the important question for people who’ve never heard it spoken out loud: how do you pronounce Beaulieu? It’s not bow-lef, nor is it bow-loo, either of which could be decent guesses based on other words you’ve heard. It’s pronounced bew-lee, and there are examples of it being spelt Bewley in the sixteenth century. So now you know.

The reason for us popping in to visit Beaulieu was that we’d reached the end of our short break to the West Country and, since this was on the route home and we had arranged to spend a night in nearby Southampton in order to meet up for a meal with friends, it was the perfect little side-journey.

The very first thing that I pretty much always take a photo of when we step past the entrance with the tickets and shop is the immediate area of trees, bushes, and huge ferns through which part of the motor museum’s monorail passes. There’s something about this human artifact amongst ancient-looking greenery that speaks to me; I’ve probably just watched too many movies set centuries after the apocalypse in a world where nature has made a return.

Into the main part of the motor museum then where a man stood outside the entrance to ensure that everyone entering was masked up and knew to maintain a distance from the people in front. In the past we might have wandered around fairly randomly and I might have waited for people to move out of the way in order to get certain angles for shots but those Covid precautions set us all into more-or-less a single column shuffling past the cars and motorbikes and limiting shot-taking opportunities in some cases. It didn’t really make a huge difference if I’m honest and if you’ve never been to the national motor museum before then it’s not the worst way in the world to take a look around simply because it will ensure you don’t miss anything. Other than some of the things that weren’t active, that is, such as the Wheels experience. Always a fun little ride through history, but never mind.

As you’ll be able to tell from the photos, the vehicles in the museum are grouped approximately by type so you can expect to see very vintage cars together, all the motorbikes together, classic cars of certain eras close to one another, racing cars of note, etc. What you won’t get in this post is a running commentary of all of them because, again, the cars themselves from a name, age, and historical perspective aren’t a huge draw for us; for me Beaulieu has often been a way to test out a new lens with the different looks and colour of the machines under some tricky lighting conditions. That wasn’t the case this time – we’d simply not been for a while and we were in that neck of the woods (or New Forest to be more accurate) – but it’s an explanation why the photos will mostly have to speak for themselves although I’ve tried to caption them with the car or bike’s name if I’ve been able to work them out.

One thing in Beaulieu motor museum we’d not seen before was a section devoted to vintage toys and games in some way connected to cars or other vehicles. The Matchbox toy cars, in particular, brought so many fond memories flooding back and I bored my wife silly here pointing and saying “Ooh, had that one… and that one… had both of those… loved that one…”

One car that always stands out for me – yes, me, with my uncaring attitude towards motor vehicles – is the Auburn 851 Speedster. I mean, just look at the chrome tubes on this thing and those front wheel arches. This is a work of utter beauty. I’d feel almost compelled to buy a zoot suit and a Tommy Gun if I had this and wanted to head off somewhere for a drive.

One section of the museum is styled in a middle of the twentieth century way with traditional fuel pumps and shop fronts lending a period backdrop to some of the more commercial vehicles on show such as the Harrods electric van or the customised Mini created to resemble an orange for Outspan promotional work.

You’ll find a few cars around the place from TV and film shows with one of the first being that of the car from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

After completing our tour of the main museum area housing the cars and bikes we made our way outside and set off in the direction of the Palace House. In other years when we’ve visited Beaulieu we’ve either made use of the monorail train that circles the area or we’ve taken advantage of the vintage double decker bus that makes the journey, both of them free to use. On this occasion the bus wasn’t running and the monorail had a reduced service in operation, and since the walk wasn’t too far we decided to use our legs instead. This took us through the Victorian Gardens and led to the discovery of something we’d not seen before, the Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland Topiary.

The garden area also included a Love-Lock Sculpture, something you’ll either love or hate; one of those areas where people attach padlocks. Unlike other places we’ve seen these things this wasn’t just a random bit of railings somewhere but a metal tree with rings designed specifically for the feature, and the locks present with their engravings of names and dates seemed to indicate they were likely part of the wedding package that can be arranged through the estate.

The Palace House is reputedly one of the most haunted locations in Britain – a claim akin to the one that I am one of the most gifted humans at turning invisible – and it dates from the thirteenth century when it was built to be the gatehouse for Beaulieu Abbey. Its Gothic style comes from extensions to the building made in the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries when it had passed into the hands of the Montagu family in the wake of the Dissolution of the Monasteries. I grabbed some photos from outside the building while there was nobody else around before we headed inside for a quick walk through the rooms.

With it being such a lovely day – a little windy and cold, but fabulously bright and clear – I had to snap some more photos of the exterior of Beaulieu Palace House before leaving this spot.

If you look at the photo below you can see that one of the corbels is obviously a little different to the rest. This is a likeness of Edward, 3rd Lord Montagu, and was put in place to replace one in need of restoration in 2006.

We finished our exploration of the grounds at Beaulieu with a quick stroll across to the Beaulieu Abbey ruins. The entire estate at Beaulieu was originally a Cistercian abbey, founded by King John in 1203, and housing only monks from France. The abbey was large, had an infirmary, cloisters, farms, gardens, a refectory, and was rich, and had important status as a sanctuary having been granted “exempt abbey” status by Pope Innocent III, leaving it answerable to nobody but the Pope himself. As a result Beaulieu found itself hosting fugitives and political enemies of the crown but from 1536 that came to an end when King Henry VIII started to disband monasteries, abbeys, and churches across England. Beaulieu Abbey was bought by Thomas Wriothesley, 1st Earl of Southampton, who immediately tore down the church then took to converting the gatehouse into his home (now the Palace House) while giving some of the buildings around the cloisters to the locals to use as a new parish church and allowing other buildings to fall into ruin. You can still make out the ground plan of the abbey thanks to the ruins present and the cloisters area, well-maintained with a peaceful space surrounded by arched walls, gives a sense of how grand the abbey would have been.

That completed our 2020 visit to Beaulieu National Motor Museum with just a short stop to grab something to eat and drink in the café before leaving. That also completed our 2020 West Country Break and we spent the remainder of the day in Southampton, grabbing a few drinks and a meal with some friends before making our way home.