Hythe and Portsmouth

Been a bit of a while since I last posted anything here but I have been busy moving to Southampton and preparing to move to Japan in August. From next month I will be working as a JET ALT in Takanabe Town, Miyazaki Prefecture. I'll try to blog a lot more then as well as add to my woods of Chandlers Ford series.


For now here are a few pictures from Hythe, a small town across the water from Southampton which is accessible by a small ferry service.


The ferry goes from Town Quay in Southampton to Hythe Pier, which has one of the oldest still in operation pier railways in the world.


The view of Southampton from other the water really gives a different prospective on the city.


It's also a great place to watch ships traveling down the Solent as the view is relatively unhindered unlike in Southampton were most of the seafront consists of docks.


As a bonus here are some extra Portsmouth photo's showing Southsea Castle in front of which the Mary Rose sank (it's a great place to visit at the moment since it's free of charge) and the cityscape under some very stormy looking weather.

Portsmouth again

A few pictures from Portsmouth before and after the Bilbao trip.

The view from the ferry as we left port.

Sunset and the Spinnaker Tower the day we returned.

An extremely odd statue on the hard by Portsmouth Harbour.

Portsmouth

I had to go to Portsmouth for a work course last week and took the opportunity to take some photos of the impressive harbour area.

First off is Spinnaker Tower, a fairly recent addition to the area. At 170 meters it dominates the sky line from much of the city but also manages to blend in with Portsmouth's maritime atmosphere.

Portsmouth Historic Dockyard is home to famous ships from British history such as HMS Victory and HMS Warrior as well as many naval exhibitions and museums. The photo above is of HMS Warrior.

In between the two attractions is Gunwharf Quays, a cosmopolitan shopping and leisure complex with lots of designer outlets and trendy restaurants. I really like it, as it has quite a different atmosphere to anything else in the Hampshire area.

The Harbour area is definitely my favourite place in Portsmouth and I love the sense of adventure I get from seeing all the boats heading out for see. I love imagining the feeling of excitement there must have been when ships set out from Portsmouth to explore the world in the hey-day of the British Empire.