Southampton

Bleary-eyed from our overnight flight from Dulles, we arrived at Heathrow Airport ready to start our journey. We flew on British Airways and found to our surprise that we were on a new Airbus—a plane so large it has two separate decks. The take off was so smooth, we were hardly aware we were leaving the ground; it turned out to be one of the smoothest flights we’ve ever experienced. We could get used to this level of travel.

From Heathrow Airport, we traveled by taxi to Southampton and checked into the Dolphin Hotel, which is an old coaching inn built in the 18^th century. The Dolphin is located in Old Town Southampton, not far from the port. To my delight, I discovered that Jane Austen had celebrated her 18^th birthday at the Dolphin. It’s a strange feeling to walk in a place where someone you admire walked two centuries ago. On previous journeys to England, we’ve come across a number of places Jane Austen lived or visited.  The plaques noting her visits are almost as frequent as the “George Washington Slept Here” plaques in the U.S.

We took advantage of our day before sailing to walk around Old Town Southampton. Not far from the Dolphin we came across a large monument that commemorates the sailing of the Mayflower, which left Southampton for the new world. Old Town also has a number of Tudor buildings with their distinctive white plaster and black beams.

Mayflower Monument

Tudor Building - The Duke of Wellington Pub

In the afternoon, our friends Dave and Rosemary, who live in nearby Portsmouth, met us at the hotel and drove us out to a pub in the New Forest for lunch. We met them on the last world voyage of the QE2 and have stayed in touch. They are a delightful couple and it was pleasure seeing them again. Along the route, we saw wild ponies that live in the New Forest. I believe it is called the New Forest because King Henry had cut down most of the trees in Britain to build ships for the Royal Navy.

Later, back at the hotel, we met a couple from Osaka, Japan. Between the woman’s limited English and my nonexistent Japanese, we learned that they were going on a world voyage on the Queen Mary 2. The hotel was filled with people either taking the QM2, the Queen Victoria, or the Queen Elizabeth, which would all be leaving at the same time. The QM2 will be circumnavigating the globe. The woman’s husband asked me if I would take a picture, which I said I would be happy to do. I then realized that he wanted to take a picture of his wife and me. So my photo is going to end up in photo album in Japan. This happened to me on a previous voyage—the Japanese love taking pictures of everyone they meet.

Experiencing jet lag and the loss of sleep the night before, we turned in early.