20th May 2016
Its nice to wake today with our feet on the ground and new adventures at our doorstep.
Yesterday went in a blur of shuttles... plane flights and customs as we said farewell to Japan and hello to England.

We stayed overnight at the lovely Novotel Southampton which provided a fabulous breakfast and was a nice easy walk from the historic old town... steeped in Titanic history.

I struggle to comprehend the age of and history of some of these buildings...seriously... this is the Bargate.... a medieval gatehouse constructed in Norman times as part of the Southampton walls... this was built in c1180 !!

 They weren't only building walls and gate houses back in Norman times...they were also building houses... like this World listed Tudor house.


We also felt a little like we had stepped back in time... The Titanic tragedy in 1912 struck Southampton hard... and there is a Titanic trail and references everywhere.

Our morning wandering Southampton was a lovely prelude to our cruise... we made our way to the dock and boarded the lovely Caribbean Princess around lunchtime ... so looking forward to our cruise of the British Isles.