This afternoon my least favourite activity either to be part of or come across while travelling. A tourist group bus tour. Wonderful, i get to see the places i've seen many times already. I'm not alone from that point of view, some islanders on the course are joining too. On to the coach, legroom at a premium here...
They stop at some church or graveyard or other at St Sampson. I head for the harbour nearby; apparently north guernsey used to be 2 islands and were joined by a bridge here at St Sampson. Long ago the channel between the islands was walled on either side against the tide and then infilled; quite a feat over a hundred years ago.
strolling around i find a drinks wholesaler just a few metres around the corner; shame there's no tap room attached. Back to the bus.
We now head towards the south of the island, stopping for some minutes at the quai outside the White Rock cafe, to explain the tomato truck bombing by the Nazis just a few days before occupation but after the islands had been demilitarized in 1940. I think his humour is starting to grate a few people already.
On the way again, and a few minutes later se stop again, further along the seafront, this time for his version of the history of Castel Cornet. Still not winning the crowd across.
Finally we end up at the far south eastern corner of Guernsey, at Jerbourg. It's a headland with a great view, there's a kiosk and a Hotel, more of which later i hope. It's a great clear afternoon and there are great views all around: back towards ST Peter port, Herm, Sark, and in the distance Jersey abut 20miles away.
Unsurprisingly this is another german bunker, but not that surprising considering the vantage point
After just enough time for an ice cream and we continue on to the Little Chapel. This was built at the beginning of the 20th century by a priest and is covered in little pieces of donated porcelain, glass and china, and it quite literally is tiny; there is a bit of history behind it, but i'll leave that to the reader to google if interested. Cutesey i guess, but not really my thing. Though there are always people here but never crowded.
Back on the bus, and off to the next location - passing GCI. Not the biggest airport in the world, but i'm sure there are smaller. This is about as close as i've ever been.
Our next location is... a stop at the side of the road to look at some Goats. These are Guernsey Golden goats and nearly went extinct during the war but we saved and hidden by a lady in the north of the island. or something. Not sure why it was necessary to stop here but the driver thought it worthy of a 10 minute stop.
Onwards we pass a church with an interesting spire
Finally we arrived at our final destination, Torteval on the South West corner, where there are some observation towers and some ditches. Now running 30 minutes behind schedule the organiser suggested that we turn around about make our way back to the hotel. No sooner had we arrived we left and back to the hotel.
No time for pictures, but it's likely you'll not have to wait much further into the week to see some...
Torteval is up high on a headland with great view so as we descend and the hedges clear you can see Lihou Island, just off the coast.
Also hopefully more of this later in the week.
The journey back to the hotel for a large vehicle such as a coach is over 30mins even though it's barely 15kms, but a car wouldn't be much quicker. I head towards the bar on arrival as there is a thirst that needs quenching, but i receive another executive order that i am requested to join the course as an external disrupter (?) so we will need to eat first. While the bar is going to have to wait food can't, and with MrsFr we share some buffalo wings and a stuffed Fallafel burger (!). Admittedly, this is part way through our "feast"; the grilled vine tomatoes, the wings and what i saw of the burger were quite pleasant and i wouldn't be unhappy with either again.
One of the local breweries is the Little Big Brew Company (LBBC), and i heard that the owner has not just that but small collection of hotels and restaurants; being one of his Hotels, he serves his own beer. Originally there were just 4 and given peoples names - Alan, Nigel, Betty and Alfie but the Hotel never servers all 4 at the same time and i used to prefer Alan or Betty. This time only Nigel, a Lager, which is not really my choice. They seem to have a couple of new ones, "IP Eh?" (I see what you did there, LBBC!), and Lily. I tried Lily on arrival and also wasn't for me; Looks like it's IP Eh for me all week.
After a chat, to bed...