Wanderung 34

HMS Victory

We docked in Southampton, England, early in the morning, and we were extraordinarly lucky to get a berth at the "old" dock that lies on the southern edge of the small city of Southampton. That saved us almost an extra mile of walking that we would have had to do if we had been moored on the big new docks that extend a long way out into the estuary on the southeast side of town. So we could fairly easily get not only to the center of Southampton, but also to the main bus and train terminals, which made getting around on our own using public transportation MUCH easier.

Since Portsmouth, where the old warship HMS Victory is preserved, was just eastward along the English coast a bit and reachable by train or bus, we decided to pop over there for the day, see the Victory again, and then maybe find the Cadbury chocolate store to get some fine chocolate before returning to our ship.

Linda and Jerry decided to come with us, so after the ship docked we all set off along the route to the train station that Ian had shown during his port lecture. Because we were docked in the terminal directly South of the city Centre, I would estimate the walk to the train station was just under a mile. The route is out of the western security gate, where Jerry got a city map for Southampton from the gate attendant, and then straight uphill through two stoplights, whereupon the train station appeared on our right.

There were long lines for the ticket counter and the ticket machines, but Monika found a "Quick Ticket" (not sure of that name) machine that would only accept debit cards and only printed tickets for a few common destinations, but those destinations included Portsmouth so she quickly bought tickets and thus we managed to catch the 10:05 train.

The trip to the Harbour area of Portsmouth, where we assumed the Victory would be located as it is in a dry dock, lasted almost an hour, and thankfully we could actually see the maritime museum complex over on our right as we exited the harbor's train station. Actually, the first thing we saw was a full-rigged, sailing ship with a long, low black hull and two big funnels or smokestacks in the middle, which turned out to be the British warship Warrior, built in 1860.

I had not remembered the Victory to be within a naval museum complex, but so it is. Curiously, the Mary Rose, Henry the VIII's warship, is NOT on the same admission ticket as the rest of the museum complex despite being located within the same perimeter, and I am totally puzzled about that. Buying tickets was complicated by having to choose the number of museum sites that you want to visit, 1, 2, 3, or unlimited, BEFORE you actually enter the complex and see what is there! Huh? Well, we mulled it over a bit and finally decided on 2-site tickets, and then started to hoof it over to the HMS Victory a short block down the street from the entrance.

But along the way we found a repair workshop that was free to enter, and we could not resist stopping off there for a few minutes. Clearly they were restoring some of the smaller naval craft like the dinghies or long boats or small ferry boats. I even observed the operation of a rope-making machine that was very cleverly designed to twist the each of three yarns in one direction whilst twisting the three yarns together into a rope in the OTHER direction. That sounds complicated, but the reason is that if you twist everything together in the same direction, the rope would have an inherent tendency to coil only in that direction, whereas you want rope to flexibly coil in any direction. I was fascinated as I had never seen such a machine operated before.

We reached the Victory around Noon, and although I thought it would only take an hour or so, we spent closer to 2 hours touring all five levels of its decks from the quarterdeck on top, down past the three decks of guns, and then below the waterline to the orlop deck where the ship's doctor and surgeon shared their offices with supply rooms, the carpentry shop, and so forth.

The Victory is preserved just like the USS Constitution in the USA because of its historical significance during a war. The Victory was Admiral Nelson's flagship when he defeated the combined French and Spanish fleets off of Cape Trafalgar in 1805. That victory ensured British naval supremacy for the next 100 years and allowed the flowering of the British Empire and later the Commonwealth, so it is a pivotal event in British history.

I didn't recall spending so much time in the Victory when we last visited with Phyllis and Lois during Wanderung 21, but partly that was because Linda and Jerry could cope with the low ceilings and steep, narrow stairways whereas Lois and Phyllis could not, and partly that was due to a new laser-activated, audio-tour devices we were using. Each significant spot on the Victory had a little glass bubble that somehow used the laser signal to tell our device, about 1/2 the size of a Cuban cigar, which station we were at and elicit the programmed spiel. I always tried to find a place where I could stand up without hitting my head and listen to it and rest my aching head, because I ultimately hit it at least 5 times on the extremely low ceilings!

The spiels were, however, quite accurate and very graphic, so it is probably just as well that the battery in mine went dead and I started using Monika's instead (she's not a big warfare fan). But with 4-6 of those listening stations per deck, we were stopping quite frequently to listen, which gave me a LOT more information about the ship and the Battle of Trafalgar but also slowed us up even more. Going slower had the avantage that we took the time to take a lot of pictures!

Monika enjoyed the different sleeping accommadations from the very opulent bed for the Admiral, to hanging bunks for higher ranking enlisted, to the hammocks for the enlisted men.

Somewhat incongruously, the gift shop is located in the bilge as you leave the Victory on its lowest deck, but fortuitously I had both a British pound and a British penny for the squished-penny machine that I found there. So I made a squished penny with the Victory embossed on it, and Monika and Linda both bought Lord Nelson teddy-bears to take home (not sure what the hard-crusted admiral would have thought of that, though).

As it was now around 2 o'clock, we checked out places to eat and ended up choosing a restaurant on a street corner just outside the gates of the museum complex, "The Ship and Castle". We all had a fine lunch, but we all participated in finishing off Monika's side dish of French Fries, or "chips" as they are called in England. She was served a LOT of them and they were really quite good; curiously they turned out to be the best French Fries we had during our entire stay in Europe. That food plus a short rest gave us enough energy to return to the museum complex and see HMS Warrior which we had espied from the train station.