The Isle of Wight

We took the suggestion of Chris and Chris, and made a day to visit the island.  A 25 minutes hydrofoil ride took us from Southampton to West Cowes.  We then bought an all day hop on and off bus ticket.  Two main attractions we wanted to see are (1) The Needles, and (2) The Osborne House and Garden.  The Needles is on the far west corner of the island.  Osborne House is on the East Cowes.

Along the bus drive, we saw pretty houses under the sun.  There is a lot of going ups and downs, like in SFO.

We arrived The Needles after a long ride.  Then we took a walk to where the beautiful white sand cliff, and the Needle Old Battery .

 

 

There was pretty good defense, but the German soldiers never made it here during the second world war.

The Osborne was Queen Victoria's favorite retreat place. From her bed room window, one can see a nice view of Solent.  Now we can see across the water the monument of Spinnaker in Portmouth.

 

We thought we could walk from the East Cowe to West Cowe where we would catch the hydrofoil back.  But unfortunately we were unable to across the water gap by walking.  A chain ferry had to be taken to get to the other side.

All was well.  We went back, had dinner (not too impressive Spanish restaurant recommended by our air B&B landlady), and picked up our car just before the 12 hours limit was up.  A very nice day indeed.