Day trip to Portsmouth

On Wednesday 6/17, Paul, Charlotte, and I headed south to Portsmouth, England! It's on the southern coast, southwest of London, and it took us about 3 hours to get there. It took a bit longer coming home due to traffic around London, but Charlotte was super good for the whole trip. Minimal whining until we were getting close to home! 

The big draw of Portsmouth is the Historic Dockyard, which is Paul's mecca. He loves British naval history in particular, and we had to go see the HMS Victory. It was an enjoyable day for me as well! We spent almost 6 hours down there, and we didn't see nearly everything. The admission pass gives you entrance for a full year, so we may be back to explore more. We focused our attention on the HMS Victory, the Mary Rose, the Museum of the Royal Navy, and a harbor tour. 

Here are a few pictures of our day! We didn't get any real pictures of the Mary Rose, but it was a really neat experience to see the remains of the flagship of King Henry VIII from the 1600s! They brought it up from the seabed in 1982 and it's been in the process of being preserved with a plastic/wax substance ever since. The archaeologists also brought up 17,000 artifacts from that time period. Very cool.

Charlotte and me in front of the HMS Victory

The officers' dining area

Mama and the little first mate on the Victory

The Spinnaker Tower, seen from the Harbor Tour

Someone was getting very sleepy but enjoyed looking at the "bubbles" in the water

OH so sleepy, poor peanut. She fell asleep in her stroller as soon as we got off the ship.

Looked to be some kind of race?

Looking out toward sea from the Harbor