Southampton: Gateway to the World

SOUTHAMPTON was a largest city in south coast of England. It has so much of history with it and was considered as gateway to the world by Britain people; because it was a major trading place with major port and ships starts from here to others countries of the world. It has been an important port since the Roman occupation of Britain.

For example, RMS Titanic started her maiden voyage from the port of Southampton with more than 2000 members onboard to New York city. Today in this city we could see lots of memorials for peoples died on Titanic, for engineers who built the Titanic and a dedicated museum for it. Not only Titanic, there were so many historical British ships like Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth I, Mayflower ships started their journey from Southampton to cross Atlantic Ocean.

Titanic Engineer's memorial

Memorial for people died on Titanic

The apartment I stayed was very near to the ports and I could see many cruise ships coming there daily. To name few, I saw Queen Mary II, Ocean Cruise, P & O Cruise

P & O Cruise

Queen Mary II

Southampton during Medieval period: 

During medieval period (between 5th to 15 century), the city was a fortified city protected by walls to safeguard people and the import & export goods. This city faced so much of destructions during WW I & WW II.

Bargate which was once the main entrance to the city

Northern Wall

Since this city was an important place for trading with the world, many merchants setup their residence here for trading during medieval period. Most of the old houses were destroyed during war and few over the time. Today the city still maintain one such merchant home for public visiting.

Old merchant house

Same merchant home

There was one more similar house called Tudor house, this house has history from 12th century and was a dwelling place for Normans. During 15th century, the Royal family used it for supplying foods for navy. Later during 16th century used as business place by one ship owner.

Infront of Tudor house

International Food Street

Every Friday and Saturday we could see world cuisines in High Street and Above Bar Street in Southampton. Chefs from different parts of the world prepares their food and delights Southampton people. Obviously I saw stalls from India with dishes like Samosa, Madras Chicken, Kaati roll, rice and more. All these shop will be closed by 5:00 pm .

International Food Streets

County flag on top of their Stall

Apart from this, if we want to try international food all over the week then we could go to oxford street, here we could see many restaurants which serves cuisines of the world. Both the sides of the street were filled with restaurants and the platform of the road was so wide that they have table on it.

Oxford Street

Bike Nights

UK people has more craze on bike riding. They do not drive for normal commutation but drive as a passion. There were so many biker clubs and the members meets at one particular place and starts their ride from there. In Southampton there was a biker club and people meet at Bargate area and start from there every Thursday night.

Assembled in Bargate area

Boat show in Southampton

Every year in Southampton, the boatshow use to happen in Mayflower park. The main theme of this show was to exhibit and showcase different ships, yacht and other accessories necessary for ship by ship makers.

In front of one of the Yachts kept for display

47th Boatshow in Mayflower park

As a part of Boatshow, there was aquarium, giant wheel, boat riding and much more. One such thing they arranged was air show and we did enjoy the performance of pilots in the air.