On the 21st of October 1805, off Cape Trafalgar on the south coast of Spain, the 27 ships of the British Royal Navy, outnumbered, outgunned, and sailing directly at the combined fleets of France and Spain, demolished the naval power of Napoleonic France in an afternoon. The British lost no ships. The French and Spanish lost 22. The victory cost the life of Admiral Lord Nelson, shot by a French marksman from the rigging of the Redoutable, carried below deck, and dying, famously, in the arms of his flag captain, Thomas Hardy. Nelson’s body was brought back to England preserved in a barrel of brandy (the origin of the Royal Navy’s practice of calling brandy “Nelson’s blood”), and his flagship, HMS Victory, the oldest commissioned warship in the world, 1765, is still afloat in Portsmouth historic Dockyard, a few hundred metres from where she was built. Portsmouth is a city built on ships: the Mary Rose (Henry VIII’s favourite warship, raised from the Solent in 1982 after 437 years on the seabed, the Tudor equivalent of an archaeological miracle, 19,000 artefacts recovered, the skeletons of the crew, the everyday objects of the 16th-century sailor, and the ship herself, sprayed constantly with polyethylene glycol to preserve the waterlogged wood, a ghost of the Tudor navy), the HMS Warrior (the first iron-hulled, armoured warship, 1860, the most powerful ship in the world on launch), and the modern Royal Navy carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, that dock at the naval base. Portsmouth is the spiritual home of the Royal Navy, and the historic Dockyard is the best maritime museum in the world. Here are the top five local attractions.

Top Five Portsmouth Attractions

• 1. HMS Victory, walking the deck of history: The Victory is a 104-gun first-rate ship of the line, and the experience of walking her decks, the Great Cabin where Nelson’s body was laid, the spot on the quarterdeck where he was shot (marked by a small brass plaque, understated and unbearably moving), and the cramped, dark, foul-smelling world of the lower decks where 821 men lived, fought, and died, is one of the most immersive historical experiences in Britain. The ship is undergoing a major conservation programme (the hull is being re-planked, the rigging replaced), but she is still open, and the work, visible to visitors, adds a layer of fascination to the experience. Entry: The historic Dockyard ticket, ~£44, covers the Victory, the Mary Rose, the Warrior, and all the other attractions. Book online (£5 discount on the gate price). Allow a full day for the dockyard. More UK →
• 2. The Mary Rose, the Tudor time capsule: The Mary Rose sank on the 19th of July 1545, in full view of Henry VIII (who was watching from Southsea Castle), during the Battle of the Solent against a French invasion fleet. The ship went down with 500 men aboard, and the silt of the Solent preserved the starboard half of the hull, the contents of the ship, and the bodies of the crew, the dead sailors whose faces have been reconstructed by forensic artists, the archer with the reconstructed longbow (the Mary Rose carried 250 longbows, the ship was a floating artillery battery of the Tudor longbowmen), the carpenter with his tools, and the dog, a small, rat-catching terrier, the ship’s dog, whose skeleton lies in the museum. The Mary Rose Museum, the ship behind glass, the artefacts displayed in galleries that mirror the decks of the ship, the temperature and humidity controlled to preserve the wood, is a triumph of museum design. Allow 1.5 hours. The ticket is included in the dockyard entry
• 3. The Spinnaker Tower and Gunwharf Quays: The Spinnaker Tower (170 metres, the sail-shaped observation tower, the view from the top: the Solent, the Isle of Wight, the dockyard, the ships. ~£14, the glass floor on the viewing deck is the essential photograph) and Gunwharf Quays (the outlet shopping centre, 90 designer outlets, the restaurants, the bars, built on the site of HMS Vernon, the Navy’s torpedo school) are the modern, commercial Portsmouth, and they are surprisingly good. The view from the Spinnaker Tower is genuinely the best on the south coast, and Gunwharf, while essentially a shopping centre, is a pleasant one, the waterfront location and the historic buildings giving it a character that most outlet malls lack
• 4. The D-Day Story and Southsea Castle: Portsmouth was the headquarters of Operation Overlord, the D-Day landings, and the D-Day Story (the museum on Southsea seafront, the LCT 7074, the last surviving Landing Craft Tank that took part in the Normandy landings, and the Overlord Embroidery, a 272-foot-long embroidery that tells the story of the invasion, the modern equivalent of the Bayeux Tapestry. ~£12, allow 1.5 hours) is the essential stop. Southsea Castle (built by Henry VIII in 1544, the castle from which the king watched the Mary Rose sink) is free, small, and offers the best view of the Solent and the Isle of Wight. The Southsea promenade, the beach, the pier, the ice cream kiosks, is the classic British seaside, slightly faded and entirely charming
• 5. Portchester Castle, the Roman fortress: Four miles from Portsmouth, on the northern shore of Portsmouth Harbour, Portchester Castle is the best-preserved Roman fort north of the Alps, the walls, built in the late 3rd century AD to defend the coast from Saxon pirates, still standing to their full height, the Norman keep in one corner of the Roman enclosure. The castle was a prison for French soldiers captured during the Napoleonic Wars, the graffiti they carved into the stone (the ships, the names, the dates) is still visible, the 19th-century prisoners’ theatre in the great hall a remarkable survival. Entry: ~£7. Allow 1 hour. The view from the top of the keep, the harbour, the dockyard, the Isle of Wight, is wonderful