We are amused

Our base camp

Shanklin Beach in morning sunshine

Walk to Queen Victorias private beach

Osbourne House

Jane in a photo snapping frenzy

View of yacht race from QV beach 

Giggling in the gardens

So proud that I drove!

Round the island race with thousands of yachts

Eleanora, one of the biggest yachts in the fleet

Its 4am and the birds have started twittering. Could they please wait and hour or two more as I am a tired tourist.  Snore. Time to get moving, a walk into the town and we now are the proud owners of a silver Skoda, who we quickly christen Victoria. Yes, I get to drive in another country, thankfully on the same side of the road as Oz.

Off we go along roads and over dales to our main destination, I have been calling this Queen Victoria’s Summer Palace. However I quickly learn it was a private residence named Osborne House and Victoria, Albert and all the 9 children and 41 grand children had a wonderful time here.

We explore around the house and start talking to the guides and learn a lot a few interesting tid bits are:

• Albert did most of the design for building, rooms and furnishing
• We stand in the room where Alexander Graham Bell showed Queen Victoria the telephone
• We both hone in on porcelain clock that was a gift from Kaiser Wilhelm, the eldest grandchild decorated with a painting of a palace we saw in Potsdam last week
• The nursery on the top floor is haunted by Prince Leopold
• Victoria and Albert where into co-working and had desks next to each other
• They loved dogs, statues and paintings are everywhere

From here we go on to visit the private beach, Swiss Cottage where the children learnt cooking and gardening and finally the walled garden. All in all this is an amazing place and I have a totally different opinion of Queen Victoria now after seeing her private residence and getting an insight into the life she and Albert purposely created for their family.

Back into the car and on we go to Cowes, its this way, no its that way. Well the map says we can go across the water at the end of the road. No we can’t it’s the ferry line to Southhampton. So back around the roads we go and make it to from East Cowes to Cowes.

Today is a big day in the yachting world with the round the island race, there are yachts and yachties everywhere. Modern sleek zillion dollar yachts, immaculately restored wooden yachts and little weekender yachts. Thousands of yachts are all finishing the race as we arrive. What that really big boat at the end? It’s the Eleanora a modern day replica of a 1910 boat. A chat to the crew reveals that they have 8 permanent sailors that sail the boat all year long for an unidentified American millionaire. Next stop for them is France, then Spain.

The Isle of Wight is the same size as Malta, a pretty freaky fact for the trip. The fastest boat in the race did it in 3.5 hours, the slowest is 10 hours. I would not want to be on the slow boat.

Time for some food, a beef and ale pie in a 400 year old pub is just what we need.