Day 56 Winchester 11 June 2018

Today under sunny skies we made our way to Portsmouth. Not the largest British naval base, that honour belongs to Plymouth. There was just too much to see at the National Museum of the Royal Navy, but a tour of the HMS Victory, Nelson’s flagship, and the Mary Rose, Henry VIII’s ship, were genuine highlights. The Mary Rose exhibition is perhaps the best museum exhibition we have seen.

The Mary Rose after 34 years was lost when it capsized and was rediscovered in the mud in the 1980s. About 1/3 remains in a climate controlled environment. They bring it alive with audio-visual presentations. 

 One side is reconstructed and on the other, it's the original remains. They also projected a sound and light show onto the ship's remains.

This is the last of the fighting ships that was at Gallipoli.

We then headed off to the D-Day Museum which was quite good and featured a WW2 tapestry that was extraodinary. The tapestry featured Operation Overlord and is considered a modern equivalent of the Bayeux tapestry. There were several groups of students; the primary school  kids were quite excited about their learning and their only noise was that of excitement.

Below are some of the segments of the tapestry - boy is it big! The kids loved it.

Tonight we had a farewell dinner and the food was lovely. Tony the tour leader gave a nice speech thanking us. As a rebuttal, both Elizabeth and I thanked him for being such a wonderful tour guide. It was a lovely evening.