Page 194 - WDT Magazine Egypt

The Isle of Wight

FIT FOR A QUEEN

STORY & PHOTOGRAPHY BY WIBKE CARTER

ith an entire empire at her feet, Queen Vic-
toria’s favourite place to relax and spend
Wtime with Albert and her nine children
was … the Isle of Wight. “It is impossible to imag-
ine a prettier spot …we can walk about anywhere
by ourselves without being followed or mobbed,
which … is delightful”, the monarch wrote about her
retreat there, Osborne House, in a letter in 1845.
Times have certainly changed since then yet the
island, just a few miles off the south English coast,
remains a popular escape for yachties, cyclists,
walkers, romantics and the sandcastle crowd.
If it’s good enough for an empress, it’ll certainly
do me, I thought and so with husband in tow and
riding our own light blue metal carriage, we crossed
by ferry on a sunny May morning. Once on the
island, time immediately seemed to slow down.
Maybe it was the palm trees exuding a semi-trop-
ical flair, the narrow roads lined by feet high leafy
hedges which stopped the foot on the accelerator
or the long, fine sandy beaches with waves slowly
crashing to shore; the holiday feeling was there in
an instant.

194 WDT MAGAZINE SUMMER 2018