Portsmouth; Friday, 21 February, 2014

I finished work just after midday and made it down onto the platform at East Croydon with a couple of minutes to spare before the Portsmouth train pulled in. The journey was smooth and pain free, and less than 90 minutes after leaving my office I was walking through the door of the hotel to check in.

After dropping my bags off I headed out of the hotel and wandered down towards the historic docks, not realising quite how far they were from the hotel, coupled with the lack of any lunch. By the time I got to Gunwharf Quays shopping centre, just before the dockyards I was famished so I grabbed a late and very naught fast-food lunch, before heading on towards the historic docks.

However, my attention was diverted by the sight of the Spinnaker tower, now the most famous sight on Portsmouth’s skyline. I headed in and took the lift up to the viewing towers. I spent quite a bit of time taking in the views and by the time I’d gotten back down to ground level and walked the final leg on to the historic dockyards they were already heading towards last admissions time.

Thankfully I’d purchased joint ticket at the Spinnaker tower which, once I’d swapped the voucher they had given me over, gave me a year’s access to the site, so I wasn’t too worried about actually getting into any of the museums of boats, instead I just had a long wander around the site.

After looking round the dockyard I walked the short distance back to Portsmouth Harbour station, and being incredibly lazy, caught the train one stop, three minutes, back up the line to Southsea station and back to my hotel to freshen up before heading back out to find dinner.

Portsmouth on a Friday night in term time (for most of the centre of Portsmouth appeared to be university buildings) is what might be described as “bustling”. Consequently I decided to eat quickly and head back to the relative safety of my hotel room from where I could watch Friday night in Pompy play out from my 4th floor window.