Portsmouth

We entered a bus that brought us to Portsmouth and walked to the Mary Rose Museum. The Mary Rose was (I use past tense because nowadays it’s not a ship anymore but a nicely arranged pile of wood) a ship that sank about 500 years ago in a battle against France.

Today you can see it in the middle of the museum where it left to dry.The Museum itself was very interesting. It’s amazing to see how long things can survive in such a hostile environment such as salt water. What I found most interesting was how wounds were treated in those times. I think everybody remembered how lucky we are to live in times of modern medicine. The Museum was huge, much bigger than anybody had expected, so there was not enough time to see everything.

We had to hurry to catch the boat for our harbour tour. The tour gave us the chance to look at many modern battle ships. It was amazing to see how naval warfare has changed during the centuries: while the old ships looked liked right out of a postcard, the modern ones were painted in light grey and didn’t look appealing at all. Also, Mary Rose sounds much nicer than Destroyer 72.

Who listened carefully could also hear the tour guide tell amazing stories about the harbour, the navy and battles . What I liked best was the story about how Lord Nelson died and was buried. When we returned from the harbour tour, there was still some time left, so we were allowed to stroll around in groups. Soon after that, we again entered the bus and drove back to Bournemouth.