Schmidt Europe Trip 2022: London Day 3

Pieter and I got up at 7 and took the tube to Victoria station to catch the 8am train to Portsmouth.

After arriving we walked a couple hundred meters to the Historic Dockyards and made a bee line to the thing I cared about, the real HMS Victory, the flagship of the British Navy. The Victory was in service for 47 years, coincidentally the same age Nelson was when we was killed on board. After that it sat in dry dock and eventually made a museum a hundred or so years later in the 1920s.

The audio guide was very well done. The access on board was very complete, we got to walk through the whole ship for the most part. Right away we came to the spot where a musket ball went through Nelson's shoulder and broke his back. He was carried below deck. At one point the Victory was being fired upon by five ships at once.

We travelled throughout the ship and got to see all of the important areas. Eventually we came to the spot where Nelson lay, mortally wounded, until he learned the battle had been won. After learning this he died shortly after. Getting to see and touch this spot, sacred to the English, was surreal. I had read the story of all of us 20 years ago and when I learned that the ship itself was something that could be visited I knew I had to make it a part of our visit to England.

We also checked out some other exhibits including the Mary Rose, Henry VIII's flagship which sunk off the coast of England and then was raised from the bottle 500 years later.

We also saw one of two remaining WWI era ships.

We did a brief tour of the Nelson exhibit at the museum. The whole dockyards area is far too big to tour even in a long day.

Finally we did a very brief walk around of the HMS Warrior - a metal clad and steam powered warship that was the biggest of the day and bridged the gap between wooden sailing ships and modern battleships.