Portsmouth (July 2010): a maritime and literary tour
Words: Helen Ochyra
Pictures: Geoff Moore
Being something of a budget airline aficionado, the last time I slept on a ferry was circa 1990 on a school trip. It was uncomfortable, cramped and desperately lacking in style, and so it was with some trepidation that I boarded Brittany Ferries’ Pont Aven in Portsmouth on the recent Guild trip.
How things have changed. Our evening began sipping champagne at the (slightly ambitiously named) Pool Bar, before we checked in to some surprisingly spacious cabins. Dinner was served in the main restaurant as we sailed out into the Solent and consisted of four delicious courses of French cuisine including crab, duck and profiteroles.
Us non-French-speakers may have struggled slightly with the quick-fire French being thrown around by the (all French) staff but it was more than worth it to feel like we had left the country for the night.
Earlier that day we had visited the Mary Rose Museum where glass-fronted cases of artefacts from this time capsule of a Tudor warship are lined up shoulder to shoulder. We were able to handle some pieces from the collection – a chunky piece of rope which still smelled of tar, a piece of shot and an unidentified hunk of the ship, probably the top rail – and discovered details of 16th-century life under Henry VIII.
The next day, we were 300 years closer to the present day at the Charles Dickens Birthplace Museum where we saw the inkwell which sat on his desk the day he died and got a sense of what 19th-century Portsmouth living was like for a middle-class family. We then drove to the City Museum, home to a vast collection of Sherlock Holmes memorabilia from letters and film posters to audio and video clips, bequeathed by Richard Lancelyn Green in 2004 and now (partially at least) on display in the A Study in Sherlock exhibition.
Finally, we came bang up to date by taking the lift up the Spinnaker Tower, the 170-metre-high centrepiece of the modern redevelopment of Portsmouth Harbour. The bravest in the group stood shoe-less on the plate glass floor and peered through their seemingly unsupported feet at the ground below before we all headed off for lunch at the Aspex gallery of contemporary art.
Tucking into sandwiches on dry land didn’t quite have the same appeal as dining in the Solent and as the trip came to an end I realised I might be missing something taking those budget flights after all.
Helicopter pilot Francisco made a quick announcement. “Is everyone up for a low-level pass of the ship? If you are, I need to see all six hands up in agreement!” Six arms were immediately raised in excited accord. And, with no further ado, our Bell 407 helicopter roared down to wave level (or so it seemed) and completed a high-speed fly-by of our sea-going home of the past week, the MV Atmosphere.
How things have changed. Our evening began sipping champagne at the (slightly ambitiously named) Pool Bar, before we checked in to some surprisingly spacious cabins. Dinner was served in the main restaurant as we sailed out into the Solent and consisted of four delicious courses of French cuisine including crab, duck and profiteroles.
Earlier that day we had visited the Mary Rose Museum where glass-fronted cases of artefacts from this time capsule of a Tudor warship are lined up shoulder to shoulder. We were able to handle some pieces from the collection – a chunky piece of rope which still smelled of tar, a piece of shot and an unidentified hunk of the ship, probably the top rail – and discovered details of 16th-century life under Henry VIII. 
Finally, we came bang up to date by taking the lift up the Spinnaker Tower, the 170-metre-high centrepiece of the modern redevelopment of Portsmouth Harbour. The bravest in the group stood shoe-less on the plate glass floor and peered through their seemingly unsupported feet at the ground below before we all headed off for lunch at the Aspex gallery of contemporary art.
