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Around the Island
Jun. 13th, 2010 09:30 pmA few months ago I noticed that the Isle of Wight was accessible by reasonably cheap train and not very big, so vowed to cycle round it; on the bank holiday weekend I fulfilled the vow.
Left work at 4:45 on Friday, train to London, tedious cycle across London to Waterloo, train to Portsmouth, fast boat across to Ryde with the wind in my hair. Reading Thorstein Veblen's The Theory of the Leisure Class on my phone. It had been quite a long week, and the B&B felt antediluvian: Formica furniture which I'm sure my grandparents had 25 years ago, 'breakfast will be from 8:30 until nine'.
Up for breakfast on the Saturday, bacon and egg and sausage and hash-browns, and onto the bike; set off anticlockwise. Passed Quarr Abbey, a Benedictine monastery built just before the first world war in a particularly uncompromisingly perpendicular style, and couldn't avoid being reminded of Veblen's remarks of the importance that religious buildings be expensively uncomfortable. It started to rain; got to the outskirts of Cowes and went to Osborne House.
This is as Victorian a building as exists; designed by Prince Albert, and the favourite home of Queen Victoria. You could see the arrival of the art-nouveau movement in the much brighter west wing, added in 1890: a factoid that rather startled me was that Victoria had developed a great interest in India after the Colonial Exhibition of 1886, and hired an Urdu teacher, Munshi Abdul Karim, who ended up a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order. There was an interesting exhibition of Indian craftwork in the Durbar Room, with the particular feature that several items had a little video showing how they were made, ending with the address of the craftsman in Delhi or Kolkata in case you wanted to order your own hammered-silver dagger handle.
It was still raining; visited the grounds, in the rain; visited the gardens, in the rain; got back on my bike and continued west. Across the Chain Ferry at Cowes, then along to Yarmouth on roads which were starting to get a bit hilly, out on the Victorian pier, and through to Totland.
It was much earlier than I'd expected, the YHA hadn't opened yet, so I locked up my bike and walked down to the Needles park and back. Supper at a nearby pub - the hostel serves food, but it has to be ordered substantially in advance and 7pm was far too late - then back to watch the last ten acts of Eurovision. I think Germany was a deserving winner, being the only act in other than cod-Eurovision style.
Up on Sunday at six, thinking it was eight; slept on the sofa in the hostel library until breakfast, then off east. This starts off nice and flat, broad open roads, baby rabbits in the fields, old stone churches against bright blue sky; after about fifteen miles of this, it switches into a thigh-straining alternation of pretty clifftop views and pretty seaside views, and continues that way for most of the rest of the circumference. I'd got my speed completely wrong and passed the town where I'd planned to have lunch at about 10:30; ended up eating on the outskirts of Bembridge. Checked my map, retraced my tracks three miles over quite a lumpy hill and visited Brading Roman Villa; a large building with a decent museum, and some attractive astronomy-themed mosaic floors. It seems that the commissioner of the mosaics did not like Emperor Caesar Gallus, and portrayed him, as I am sure he had been portrayed since primary school, with a chicken's head.
After that, retraced my tracks again, round the harbour at St Helen's, downdowndown into Seaview and upupup downdowndown into Ryde, and jumped into the municipal swimming pool for half a kilometre, to cool myself down if nothing else. Malaysian supper, and out like a light, in what was now, in my better mood, a pleasingly retro B&B.
Monday dawned; after the pleasantly communal single-sitting breakfast, caught the hovercraft to Portsmouth (a little disappointing since you have to sit inside and the windows are small and grubby), looked in at the cathedral and the tiny hidden-in-a-corner Falklands War memorial, and bought a ticket to the dock museums. Stayed at the docks all day; HMS Warrior, a trip round the harbour narrating the states and purposes of the many haze-grey hulls, the Mary Rose museum which had interesting artefacts but where the ship itself is still being preserved elsewhere by processes incompatible with visitors, tasty pancakes, and HMS Victory.
The big warships were surprisingly spacious in the way that I remember the Great Britain in Bristol being surprisingly cramped: hammocks are clearly better than cabins for this. I liked the elaborate arrangement of brass strips inlaid in Warrior's deck for swivelling the swivel-gun.
At 4:30 I got a train back to London, cycled more competently from Waterloo to King's Cross, and back in Cambridge by nine. Really a very good bank-holiday outing.
The routes: Saturday and Sunday.
Left work at 4:45 on Friday, train to London, tedious cycle across London to Waterloo, train to Portsmouth, fast boat across to Ryde with the wind in my hair. Reading Thorstein Veblen's The Theory of the Leisure Class on my phone. It had been quite a long week, and the B&B felt antediluvian: Formica furniture which I'm sure my grandparents had 25 years ago, 'breakfast will be from 8:30 until nine'.
Up for breakfast on the Saturday, bacon and egg and sausage and hash-browns, and onto the bike; set off anticlockwise. Passed Quarr Abbey, a Benedictine monastery built just before the first world war in a particularly uncompromisingly perpendicular style, and couldn't avoid being reminded of Veblen's remarks of the importance that religious buildings be expensively uncomfortable. It started to rain; got to the outskirts of Cowes and went to Osborne House.
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This is as Victorian a building as exists; designed by Prince Albert, and the favourite home of Queen Victoria. You could see the arrival of the art-nouveau movement in the much brighter west wing, added in 1890: a factoid that rather startled me was that Victoria had developed a great interest in India after the Colonial Exhibition of 1886, and hired an Urdu teacher, Munshi Abdul Karim, who ended up a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order. There was an interesting exhibition of Indian craftwork in the Durbar Room, with the particular feature that several items had a little video showing how they were made, ending with the address of the craftsman in Delhi or Kolkata in case you wanted to order your own hammered-silver dagger handle.
It was still raining; visited the grounds, in the rain; visited the gardens, in the rain; got back on my bike and continued west. Across the Chain Ferry at Cowes, then along to Yarmouth on roads which were starting to get a bit hilly, out on the Victorian pier, and through to Totland.
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It was much earlier than I'd expected, the YHA hadn't opened yet, so I locked up my bike and walked down to the Needles park and back. Supper at a nearby pub - the hostel serves food, but it has to be ordered substantially in advance and 7pm was far too late - then back to watch the last ten acts of Eurovision. I think Germany was a deserving winner, being the only act in other than cod-Eurovision style.
Up on Sunday at six, thinking it was eight; slept on the sofa in the hostel library until breakfast, then off east. This starts off nice and flat, broad open roads, baby rabbits in the fields, old stone churches against bright blue sky; after about fifteen miles of this, it switches into a thigh-straining alternation of pretty clifftop views and pretty seaside views, and continues that way for most of the rest of the circumference. I'd got my speed completely wrong and passed the town where I'd planned to have lunch at about 10:30; ended up eating on the outskirts of Bembridge. Checked my map, retraced my tracks three miles over quite a lumpy hill and visited Brading Roman Villa; a large building with a decent museum, and some attractive astronomy-themed mosaic floors. It seems that the commissioner of the mosaics did not like Emperor Caesar Gallus, and portrayed him, as I am sure he had been portrayed since primary school, with a chicken's head.
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After that, retraced my tracks again, round the harbour at St Helen's, downdowndown into Seaview and upupup downdowndown into Ryde, and jumped into the municipal swimming pool for half a kilometre, to cool myself down if nothing else. Malaysian supper, and out like a light, in what was now, in my better mood, a pleasingly retro B&B.
Monday dawned; after the pleasantly communal single-sitting breakfast, caught the hovercraft to Portsmouth (a little disappointing since you have to sit inside and the windows are small and grubby), looked in at the cathedral and the tiny hidden-in-a-corner Falklands War memorial, and bought a ticket to the dock museums. Stayed at the docks all day; HMS Warrior, a trip round the harbour narrating the states and purposes of the many haze-grey hulls, the Mary Rose museum which had interesting artefacts but where the ship itself is still being preserved elsewhere by processes incompatible with visitors, tasty pancakes, and HMS Victory.
The big warships were surprisingly spacious in the way that I remember the Great Britain in Bristol being surprisingly cramped: hammocks are clearly better than cabins for this. I liked the elaborate arrangement of brass strips inlaid in Warrior's deck for swivelling the swivel-gun.
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At 4:30 I got a train back to London, cycled more competently from Waterloo to King's Cross, and back in Cambridge by nine. Really a very good bank-holiday outing.
The routes: Saturday and Sunday.
