Tour of Southampton on turnaround day

[caribill]

We have a turnaround day in Southampton next year in June on a Monday and are looking for a tour of sights in the Southampton area.

 

Not looking for the traditional sights on the way to London such as Stonehenge, but on what is interesting in and around Southampton itself.

 

Any suggestions?

 

Thanks

[TheOldBear]

There should be some posts in this forum from John Bull - found this one from October 2020 

We have two turnaround days on our next sailing - 1 and 13 November, before and after the Northern Lights cruise to Norway.

We are thinking about a ship's excursion for Tuesday the 1st to a London area attraction - otherwise we will try one or two of the local attractions [e.g. Solent Sky Museum, Portsmouth Historic Dockyard ]

For Sunday the 13th, we are planning on going to church at St Michals, followed by a pub lunch at the Dancing Man.

Mrs Bear has shared our port schedule with some of her Facebook friends - we will see if an can make / take the time to meet us.

[John Bull]

On 6/17/2022 at 6:20 PM, caribill said:

We have a turnaround day in Southampton next year in June on a Monday and are looking for a tour of sights in the Southampton area.

 

Not looking for the traditional sights on the way to London such as Stonehenge, but on what is interesting in and around Southampton itself.

 

Any suggestions?

 

Thanks

 

On 6/17/2022 at 7:09 PM, TheOldBear said:

There should be some posts in this forum from John Bull - found this one from October 2020 

We have two turnaround days on our next sailing - 1 and 13 November, before and after the Northern Lights cruise to Norway.

We are thinking about a ship's excursion for Tuesday the 1st to a London area attraction - otherwise we will try one or two of the local attractions [e.g. Solent Sky Museum, Portsmouth Historic Dockyard ]

For Sunday the 13th, we are planning on going to church at St Michals, followed by a pub lunch at the Dancing Man.

Mrs Bear has shared our port schedule with some of her Facebook friends - we will see if an can make / take the time to meet us.

 

 

The problem with Portsmouth Historic Dockyard for a turnaround day is that the day is trunkated even if same-ship, same-cabin. For instance, a second safety drill?

 

Direct hourly train takes about an hour, Portsmouth Harbour station is a 3-minute walk from the dockyard gate.

You need a minimum 3 hours to see Mary Rose, walk over HMS Victory, and either exhibitions in dockyard buildings or walk over Warrior.

Doing it justice is more like 5 hours plus.

 

Winchester is easy - 10 minutes by train, 2 - 3 trains per hour, 15 minutes £12 return pp. The main attraction is the Cathedral.

Salisbury pretty easy too - half-hourly trains, 35 minutes journey time, £12 return pp. Again main attraction is the cathedral - not as old, but more spectacular.

The National Motor Museum  & other attractions of Beaulieu are via the little ferry from Town Quay across Southampton Water to Hythe, then a taxi from Hythe about 6 miles across a corner of the New Forest. Arrange wit the driver to collect you at an agreed time - there's no taxi rank at Beaulieu and the bus service is woeful.

 

Links to the above in my thread posted by the Old Bear

 

In Southampton you'd have time for the Tudor House & Gardens and Solent Sky.

 

Tudor House, recently restored, is Southampton's finest old building (much of the old city blitzed in 1940 / 41. https://tudorhouseandgarden.com/

Used to be known as Tudor Merchant's House, but changed to avoid confusion with the nearby Medieval Merchant's House (behind the Duke of Wellington pub) which is much much smaller & only open at weekends.

 

Solent Sky is volunteer-run (one an old friend of mine tho I've not seen him for a few years). Exhibits major on aircraft with local connections & include an original Spitfire (designed & built in Southampton before the factory was blitzed, then construction continued in factories & workshops around the area until new factories were built in the Midlands.

And a Supermarine S6A seaplane, fore-runner of the Spitfire which won three consecutive international Schneider Trophy events.

Hawker-Siddeley, de Havllland, Avro, Folland & other aircraft with local connections, and a Harrier jump-jet cockpit in which you can make yourself comfortable

Also a Short Sandringham flying boat (Southampton was the country's premier flying-boat port in the few years of their hay-day just before WW2.

Their terminal was Berth 101 - now the site of City Cruise Terminal, they took off & landed on Southampton Water.

Their maintenance hangers at Calshot Spit survive, now used for adventure training. You can see them starboard side on the spit of land which juts out where Southampton Water joins the Solent, behind the coastguard tower and diminutive Henry V111 castle.

Other aircraft including & parts & stories.

The volunteers are enthusiastic, friendly & informative.

https://www.solentsky.org/

 

Convenient for a bite of lunch, between the two are several pubs including the Duke of Wellington & the Dancing Man and a number of restaurants.

 

JB 🙂