After breakfast we made our way north to Cowes to look at Osborne House. This is also a favourite place for Les and Iris as they have visited many times. This was the holiday residence for Queen Victoria and her family. We spent nearly four hours here looking at the house and its surroundings. I learnt a lot about Queen Victoria and her family. She was the longest reigning monarch of England. Queen Elizabeth II still has 14½ months to catch up to her. It is interesting that they are the only queens to reign and have done so the longest.

Queen Victoria and her husband had nine children and lived quite normal lives out of the spotlight at Osborne House. The Swiss cottage was where the children learned everyday things such as cooking, sewing, drawing painting and each had a plot for planting their own garden. The children looked like they had fun times at the house.

The aim for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert was to unite England and countries in Europe. So the children ended up marrying into different royal families across Europe. So Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Phillip her husband and Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, amongst others, are great great grandchildren of Queen Victoria. It all seems so incestuous.

The house is set on a large property. The house is majestic with lots of written information inside as well as furniture, photos and paintings. Some paintings were done by the Queen and Prince. The gardens were beautiful. We walked down to the beach which was about 1.2 kms. Here Queen Victoria would swim with her family and where the children learnt to swim. We had a snack and sat on the deck chairs admiring the view.

We took the mini bus back to the house as John was having trouble with his shin and he waited there whilst we went to the Swiss Chalet to look where the children spent most of their time. There was information about each child and things they enjoyed doing. No wonder we took 4 hours to look at everything. It was well worth seeing.

It was after two when we left Osborne House. From there we went to Newport for a few groceries and on to Arreton where we had dinner at the Dairyman's Daughter Inn. There was a small village with specialty shops there. Dee and I had a quick look around as the shops were closing. The dinner we had was huge and I struggle to eat it all even though it was very nice.

We finally made it back to Rookley at about 7pm. It was a great day today and very educational.