Where to Next?: June 20 – Southampton UK

a pint in the shade

June 20 – Southampton UK
"Togetherness"

Weather – 23º and sunny

Steps – 22,102

16 hours 3 min of daylight, supposed to be the LONGEST DAY of the YEAR, but exactly the same as yesterday

HAPPY SUMMER SOLSTICE!!

Southampton is approximately 130 km south-west of London, pop. 270,000. Not technically on the English Channel, but on an estuary inland from the English Channel which we will be sailing on tomorrow. We have spent time in London before, so decided to come directly to Southampton for a couple off days prior to the cruise. There’s not a ton to do here, so getting over jet-lag hanging in a few pubs and wandering is on our agenda.

St. Michael's Church

Breakfast is included with our hotel rate, so some good but unremarkable food – I guess that is what British food is to us, we headed out.

crisps

Our hotel is very close to the port, but we have luggage, so no matter how close some ports just aren’t walkable, in fact…some aren’t walkable luggage or not… it’s not allowed. We experimented and found out this morning that tomorrow we will walk. It won’t be as easy as today with 2 pieces of luggage each (thank you covid lost luggage legacy making me feel like I need carryon ‘just in case’.)

Next, was a wander to the Southampton City Art Gallery. We found it, but
realized we were a bit thirsty, and found The
Papillon for a pre-museum pint. I had my first cider of the trip. I look forward to English cider. These are usually good ol’ quality dry ciders…this one was a bit to sweet for me. It was labeled as ‘medium’ so I wasn’t surprised. My quest for a good ‘ol continues. Today was a glorious day for a wander and a bit of outside pint sipping – especially by UK standards. Much of today was spend hunting shade and carrying my zippy (thin zip up jacket type thingy.) Why I thought I’d need the zippy when it was 17 degrees at 10:30 this morning and just getting warmer is beyond me! Anyway…we sat under the shade of an umbrella, outside Papillon (bar/pub in a renovated church) sipping my Inch’s Cider watching the world go by.

covered lots of area

city walls

The world we watched was the Mayflower Village pub. Before settling on Papillon, we stopped outside the Mayflower in the shade to check out our maps and their menu when a worker popped her head out to tell us they weren’t open until noon. She was very friendly, making sure we were OK
and telling us where a few other places around were open. From our spot across the street, we saw were many ‘older folk’ trying to get in before noon. Either there was a retirement place nearby or they are cruise ship folk. I suspect they know a good spot when they see one, so we went back later for dinner.

butterfly bush - everywhere!

Once we finally made it to the Southampton City Art Gallery it was perfect…cool, loo opportunity, quiet, spots to sit, not too big, not busy, art…like I said…perfect. It only took about an hour to see everything including “Togetherness”, a piece by a Vancouver born artist described as “Gieshas in a suite at the Sheraton in downtown Vancouver playfully cavorting with some off-duty Mounties”…bizarre.

More wandering and we found ourselves at the
Southampton Saints football stadium. Chris thought maybe a bit of shopping for a shirt was in order, but no such luck…store was small with nothing too interesting.

attempted intruders

We almost stopped for a bite at the waterfront where there were a few restaurants and pubs, but nothing spoke to us. There were many yachts to admire. A coke and a Perrier with some cheddar and onion crisps (gotta call them that here) and we were back for a rest.

Dinner was a pizza and a pint (Orchard Thieves - a dry cider) at the Mayflower Village pub.