Portsmouth/Southampton, England

Did You Know?

• The Mayflower sailed from Southampton (but had to return to Plymouth before heading to America).
• Portsmouth is home to the Victory, the world’s oldest commissioned ship (launched 1765, commissioned 1778).
• The Titanic nearly collided with another ship at Southampton, an accident that would have precluded later catastrophe.
• Hayling Island, at Portsmouth, is the birthplace of windsurfing.
• Southampton has the world’s oldest bowling green still in use (c.1299).

A pair of port cities

Portsmouth and Southampton are middling-sized cities (less than a quarter of a million people each) only 30 miles apart on the southern coast of England. From medieval times, they were rival port cities, a rivalry that mostly manifests itself these days in their competing sports teams.

For the tourist, it makes sense to combine the two in a single itinerary, relishing their different claims to fame as well as the types of attractions and activities that both can offer.

As to those differences, Portsmouth is the city noted for its literary connections. Charles Dickens was born there, but several other authors have historical links to the city. Today Portsmouth is host to a couple of annual festivities with heavy literary connections.

Southampton still retains a historic city center where visitors can see remnants of the medieval town and walk the old defensive walls.

Both have fascinating stories to tell about their ports. The Mayflower and the Titanic docked at Southampton before the transatlantic journeys that made history. Most of the Titanic’s crew lived in Southampton. Today, Southampton is Europe’s largest cruise port. Portsmouth, long home to the Royal Navy, boasts an 800-year history of serving the navy.

Because of their military importance, both cities were badly damaged by enemy bombing during World War II (and, in places, that damage is recast in unimaginative modern reconstruction), and massive numbers of landing craft left from these and neighboring ports for the D-Day invasion of the continent.

Today, both offer visitors the attractions of waterfront vistas and activities (more so in Portsmouth at the moment) and opportunities for harbor cruises, private sailings aboard chartered yachts and excursions by ferry to the Isle of Wight, a resort destination good for relaxing days — or adrenalin-charging water sports.

The area’s recent and not-so-recent past on the front lines of Britain’s defenses are marked in several museums, most notably the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard (actually a complex of attractions), but also Southampton’s Solent Sky Museum, celebrating aviation development in the area, and, in Portsmouth, the Royal Marines Museum and D-Day Museum.

Things to do for Venturers