St Helier; Sunday, 10 November, 2019

I originally had big plans for sites I wanted to visit today, but a quick check online last night revealed that both Elizabeth Castle and the pre-historic ruins at La Hogue Bie were closed until Easter, so that ruled out visiting them and meant there wasn’t actually that much to see, particularly given the limited bus service available on a Winter Sunday.

Instead I had a bit of lie in and a late breakfast before having a leisurely checkout from the hotel, making it over to the bus station in time to get the 11:30 bus out to Gorey. Thankfully one of the sites I’d planned to see - Mont Orgueil Castle – was still open. I arrived in Gorey a little before 12 and headed up into the castle.

When I’d visited before they castle was undergoing major renovation and archaeological digs – in preparation for the 800 year celebrations in 2004 of Jersey swearing loyalty to the English Crown (after the English King had managed to successfully lose all his possessions in France) – and there had been a lot of scaffolding and quite a few closed areas. So I was looking forward to being able to see more of the castle than I had done last time.

I wasn’t disappointed, there was a lot more to see – and every castle looks so much more impressive when it’s not covered in scaffolding! In the end I spent more than 2 hours looking round the site, by which point I was feeling quite knackered given the number of spiral staircases I’d walked up.

I grabbed lunch in the café in the castle, sitting in the sun watching the impressive site of the Jersey tide racing in and rapidly filling the harbour. Lunch completed I wandered back down to the harbour and then picked up the bus into St Helier. I was going to visit the museum, but as I got to it the time just ticked past last ticket sales so there didn’t appear much point as it would be a very quick visit – so instead I headed back over to the hotel to collect my luggage and have a quick afternoon snack and cup of coffee in the hotels bar.

Refreshed I headed back over to the bus station to pick up the bus back out to the airport and start my journey home.