Saturday 18 June 2011

Good night’s sleep apart from the pillows – very thin – should have brought our own in out of the car but by the time we thought of it the rain was too heavy. Breakfast was in the basement in a charming art deco room. We were made very welcome by the hostess and the food was lovely. Kev had fruit, walnuts and yoghurt and we both had scrambled eggs – delicious. As it was around 9am we decided to pack up but leave our bags in the room and head off to view the Palace where George IV spent much of his time firstly as Prince of Wales and later as King. Its hard to describe how sumptuous it was – I can honestly say I have never seen anything like it. The palace is styled according to Chinese design of the time with dragons and ornate characters in gold and red. The central dining room had the most magnificent chandelier weighing over 1 ton – it was huge. The exhibition included models of actual clothing from the time (1800’s) with the cloak worn by George IV at his coronation which would have been around 6 metres long and made of silk velvet decorated with gold thread – amazing! It was well worth the visit and we managed to get OAP prices at £18.50 for two. We would have gone to the Museum as well but we had to get back to our hotel by 11am so we flagged that – can’t do everything unfortunately. Oh forgot to mention managed to get a spot of shopping in prior to the palace visit (it didn’t open until 9.30am). The lanes in the village were lovely with lots of nice shops including Jigsaw Marie! Tried that shirt on and it was lovely soo…

Headed back to check out and sorted out our maps etc for the journey to Portsmouth and on to Isle of Wight. Managed to get Mary organised and headed out of town. She was in good form today and led us all the way to the Ferry terminal. At the terminal we picked up our tickets (ordered by the people we are staying with) and proceeded to line up with the many other vehicles for a crossing. We were supposed to go at 2pm but managed to get on the 1.30pm sailing which was a bonus as it meant we got to Cowes a little earlier. Quite a smooth passage and only took around 40 minutes – much the same as Auckland to Waiheke. It was a huge Ferry with 2 levels of cars and 2 of lounges and sailings appear to go every 30 minutes.

Once we hit the Island I was forced to use the internet maps we had downloaded as Mary didn’t seem to recognise any of the places I logged in the phone. The maps are Ok but not as good as Mary and we did get a tad lost on the way but after a circuitous route eventually found the place we were looking for. We are staying in a little village named Shanklyn, which is south of Sandown. Our accommodation is Fernbank a lovely old home and our apartment has two bedrooms and our own bathroom (separate). It is absolutely beautiful and I have told Kev I expect nothing less as we go on! There is even an indoor swimming pool about 6 steps from our door! The house has a separate dining room, bar and lounge all beautifully decorated in period style. We are currently sitting relaxing prior to going out to dinner. The village is about 5 minutes away so we will walk and there are dozens of restaurants all with a wide variety of meals. Tomorrow we are going to explore a village about 20 km south of here called Ventnor.

J&P make sure you put your raincoats and some warm clothing in. Even today when the sun was finally able to poke its head through, the wind was freezing and we had to resort to wearing our raincoats.