Southampton by the sea

Today we bid a reluctant farewell to John, our host at Webster’s B&B in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England. Concetta and I thoroughly enjoyed all things about Websters. Even though all our hosts over the past two weeks have been friendly, accommodating, and eager to please, John impressed us with his enthusiasm, willingness to take time to chat, and for the obvious joy he took in running his guest house as expertly as he could. John and Veronica have one of best B&Bs we've encountered so far and I unhesitatingly recommend his home to anyone headed to Salisbury.

Unfortunately, leave we must as our next host was expecting us. But before we set our course for “The Old Barn” in Kent, I wanted to drop down to the coast, city of Southampton, and see if I might find a museum dedicated to the Titanic. Thanks to the GPS, it turned out to be rather easy to find (see top photo). Though I subsequently parked the car going the wrong way on a one-way street, for which a kindly “Bobby” left me a polite note, our navigation device guided us to within about 100 feet of the front door. Very cool!

As you know, Southampton was the last port of call for the Titanic before it set sale for America and its rendezvous with history. I’m sure everyone has seen a million documentaries about the ship and you might think, oh, well, why waste the time. But what I was interested in was more information on the human element in the story. Thankfully, I wasn’t disappointed. The museum had quite a bit of personal property of passengers and crew passed along by surviving family members as well as many, many personal accounts that often fail to make it to the various documentaries. Though museum rules prevented any photography inside, I can tell you that it was well worth the visit.

Of course, after having spent over a year living aboard a boat myself, things to do with the sea always get my attention. But listening to the various biographies of many of the passengers and crew, both survivors and non-survivors, made our visit extremely interesting. Seeing the photographs of crewmen and reading their last cards and letters home had a huge impact on me, I’ll tell you. Museum staff seemed to think that there was still an old lady living in Southampton who was an eight month old baby when the ship went down and is the last known survivor.

After our visit to the Maritime Museum, Concetta and I next headed for the Archaeology Museum (photo 2)where we explored the three periods of early Southampton history. The city had its beginnings as an iron-age settlement, but the first major influx of people came with the Roman invasion around 43 A.D. The Romans turned Southampton into a shipping port and it prospered. After the decline of the Roman empire, the Saxons (probably the Jutes) came next and the settlement expanded as a trading center. Then, in the fourteenth century a wall was built around the city, some of which still survives. In fact, the Archaeology Museum we visit is located in one of the old guard towers from the wall. From that time to now Southampton has been one of the busiest ports and trading centers in the world.

The last thing we did in Southampton was visit the marker erected to commemorate the departure of the Mayflower in 1620 (photo 3)for that place we all know and love, North America. One of the wonderful aspects of traveling in the UK is the age of everything you see. When we were in the Maritime Museum, one of the guides told us that their building was 400 years old when the Mayflower set sail just outside their door. The other night in Salisbury, we had dinner in a restaurant that had been a bar serving the workers who built the city’s cathedral over 700 years ago. Now that’s OLD! Fortunately, the food and ale was great and obviously hadn't been sitting around that long.

I missed out on my tea break today, but we had a very smooth drive from Southampton to our current five-day residence in Kent. Once again, the GPS took us door-to-door without so much as a hiccup. Tomorrow we hope to hop the train to London (I don’t want to drive it) and see the sights there. Stay tuned for adventures on the tube, the Eye, and, if Concetta gets her way, the War Museum.

Ciao, tutti