Continued from part 1…
On Tuesday, we had planned to go to Portsmouth to see the boats and submarines, but while eating breakfast we checked their opening times and found out the submarine was closed on Tuesday’s, so that would have to wait until tomorrow. Today, instead of Portsmouth, we decided to visit Romsey (a small nearby town), and Southampton, since neither of us had ever been to either.
We drove to Romsey, arriving around 10:30am, and began exploring. It’s a lovely small town, lots of crafty shops and small cafes, pubs, and restaurants. We grabbed a little slice of cake from Cafe Fresh, then walked around town checking out various shops until we found the abbey nearby.
Romsey Abbey was lovely. While we were there, a choir was practicing for a later-day recital, so the whole building was filled with lovely singing.
Many of the stained glass windows used a lot of deep greens, which was very pretty. One of the windows showed artwork of Florence Nightingale.
After another walk around the town, we got back in the car and drove to Southampton. Arriving just before lunch, we had a nightmare trying to find somewhere to park. The signposts for parking seemed to lead nowhere, and the carpark we finally found was very awkward and tight.
Nevertheless, we walked into the city and did some exploring and a little shopping. We looked at a few places for lunch, but couldn’t find somewhere we loved the look of so settled on Ed’s Diner. From here we walked down the hill towards the castle. It started raining, so we didn’t want to spend too much time walking around.
The Bargate medieval gatehouse was a nice sight, but looked a little out of place, surrounded by concrete and nothing else medieval.
I hoped that the castle would be more impressive, but when we got there, it was apparent that it just consisted of a short wall in a car park. Probably the most disappointing castle I’ve ever seen.
Not particularly enamoured with Southampton, we decided to leave and return to the hotel. This is probably our least-favourite city to date. Back in the hotel and wet through, I started to feel unwell, so we got a takeaway from a nearby Pizza Express, and called it an early night.
We’d visit Romsey again, but not Southampton.
I like the look of Romsey Abbey, never been and think perhaps you should have stayed there and not gone to Southampton.
Never been to Southampton and after your experience won’t bother now. Lovely looking abbey and Ed’s Diner sounds like my kinda place!