Had breakfast in the same pub as yesterday, it's convenient and reasonably priced but not that good. Gemma had veggie full and I had full english, this time they forgot the black pudding until I asked for it.
Then at 10:30 we set off for the fort. The Tom Tom did it's job again but the signposting for the car park could have been better. You have to drive past the fort before you see the signs. As we were going in three cars missed the turning and tried to drive in through the main entrance and had to back up to the main road.
Spent until 2:30 in the fort. It is very well presented with guns from all ages on show. The fort itself is in a very good state of repair with almost all areas open for view. I found the Caponiers very interesting, I had not realized how restricted the field of fire was from these positions. In the smoke of battle (gun power not smokeless propellant) it must have been chaos. We had a look at the mortar battery that seems to be a feature of forts of this age.
The main gun hall was across the top of the fort and full of stuff. I took a lot of photos there, many of the guns were much larger than I expected, moving them on a muddy battlefield must have been a real challenge for the crews!
Some of the displays were in the underground galleries of the fort. The main Caponiers was open with some 32lb SBBL being present. Again it would have been hell in there if the fort had ever seen action. There was a small canteen where we had a unimpressive lunch even though there seemed to be a chef on site, there was also a gift shop on site where Gemma and I made some purchases. I would have liked to spend more time there but we had other places to visit. On the way out we had a look at the only surviving 14" guns from a KGV battleship.
When we got back to the car it had been baking in the midday sun around stood around while the ac cooled the car, thank god it was fitted to the car!
Then off to Portchester castle, (GMaps)it was a bit confusing as we were much closer than we thought and the GPS took us down some very small roads in a sort of short cut. Plenty of space in the car park and a short walk over a stream and into the castle. It's a odd mix of roman and Norman. The main fort is roman and covers a large area, must have been very impressive in it's day. Inside the roman fort is a Norman one. Much smaller, we intended to go in but discovered that they wanted 4.50 for an area about the size of my house. Gem muttered that English heritage overcharges for their sites and we just visited the gift shop where Gemma bought a spoon. I should mention that she did this at almost every place we visited and she ended up with quite a collection of them. Gem should put them on her flicker page to show off.
Rather than go in we bought ice creams and sat in the Roman area to consume them. The roman fort also contains a church which was simple but interesting.
We still had plenty of day left so we decided to visit the sea front.
Quite peaceful down there, we went to the D-Day tapestry museum. I had been there before but gem had not. Not very much had changed. Gem had a moan about people taking flash pictures were there were clear signs saying not to. This is something that we saw a lot of people ignoring the flash rules, do people not realize how much flash damages the pigments or do they just not care?
Then with some time left we walked along the front to Southsea castle. As you can see it's a small fort but again they wanted 4.50 to get in, English Heritage again. We chose not to go in and while I was standing outside a group came up and made the same decision. It's a lot of money for a family of four for such a small site! After a while Gem came out of the shop muttering and cursing about English Heritage and saying how much better The Nat Trust is at this sort of thing. I was surprised that she did not have a spoon but she explained that though the shop had them they were the most expensive that she had ever seen and she just refused to be ripped off.
Then we were tired and it was really the end of the day, everywhere was starting to close. On the way back we went via a small Aldi store next to the hotel as we wanted some real coffee and tea for out travels. Some of the places were a bit stingy on their room supplies. Aldi was interesting a bit like a small warehouse, I was not sure if everybody got a bargain of not! (only NZ will understand that comment).
Then back to the pub for dinner. There was nowhere else close and we could not be bothered to loom further. Not only Thant but I had noticed Chicken Tikka Masala on the menu, real British food!
