Well, I must have done something right sometime in the past cause the sun shone and shone and shone today. And when the sun shines every image looks amazing although I have to say that I visited some pretty attractive places and beaches.

I started at Ventnor. I’d forgotten what a nice place Ventnor is, especially in that early morning light. I used to bring parties of children here in my early days as a teacher. The pier was still there then, before it was demolished in the 1990s following a fire. The site is still marked. But it is a lovely, calm resort with an air of respectability and prosperity.

• 

• 

• 

• 

I then drove through the Overcliff. This stretches all the way along the coast. For a while it is wooded on its upper slopes sprinkling shadow and shade below. The lower road is closed due to cliff slip, the process of land slumping down into the sea forming clumps of rocks in front of a receding coast line.

• 

Emerging from the shade of the woods the road runs parallel to the coast with open country and farmland on both sides. Cow parsley conducts the swaying fields of young barley and wheat. Marked footpaths set off to the cliffs and chines, steep gullies, cut down to the rough beaches. Brook Cline is one such.

• 

Freshwater is a quiet resort where the road and coastal path sink down to the sea and then rise up again. It must have been popular with the Victorians judging from the age of the housing.

• 

Alum Bay provides the most spectacular view of the beach and the Needles Lighthouse. Of course I went down in the chair lift, and up!

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Totland and Colway are very similar, clutched on the coast in a narrow stretch of land, especially at high tide but connected by a sleepy, wild esplanade.

• 

• 

• 

• 

My favourite place of the day was Victoria Fort at Norton. Away from the visitors it is an old deserted battery that was originally built in the time of Henry VII, facing Hurst Castle on the opposite side of the Solent, to protect us from the French. It was further developed at the start of the Napoleonic Wars for the same purpose. It’s even got a slowly disintegrating military pier. It is a peaceful place, calm and settled with a little cafe providing snacks & drinks from one of the battery houses.

• 

• 

I’ll leave you with some images of the charming port of Yarmouth, the site of another of Henry VII’s forts facing out to sea. It has a pleasure pier for unloading visitors from the mainland and next door a terminal for their vehicles as well.

• 

• 

•