Seventeen years ago, I visited Bournemouth in Dorset, England for the first time. I visited it with my ex-boyfriend who lives in the New Forest and would visit Bournemouth often. Before this, I had never been to a "beach", so this trip to Bournemouth to see the sea and a sandy beach was a first for me. Overall, this was a lovely (and summery) day out in Bournmouth and one of my favourite days of 2000 and my short visit to England as I was only staying for six months on a work exchange visa. A few years later, I would move to Bournemouth for a short time to go to university.
The visit to Bournemouth was by bus connection from Ringwood. We stopped to see the beach and the pier. At the time, there was an IMAX cinema and restaurants on the seafront. We had a quick visit there, and we did see a show in the IMAX. (Later, I would visit a couple of the restaurants in this seafront area, but they have since been taken down.)
We also had a really lovely walk and chat around the gardens in the centre of Bournemouth, admiring the beautiful flower beds and the little stream that winds its way down and through the lower gardens. In the gardens, there is a lantern festival that takes places in the summer months, which I covered here. Balloon flights also launch from the gardens and provide great views over Bournemouth. I never did get a trip up in the balloon, but the balloon can be seen towering above from miles away. The design has changed a bit now, but below is what it looked like seventeen years ago.
I loved walking around the flower gardens. They were really pretty in 2000. A couple of years later, they did not get decorated as beautifully or even compare to the way they were during my first visit. I think a lot of cuts were made after 2001. The world changed then.
We also had a trip to Poole, although I never realised that I had visited there until I was looking through my old photo albums. I suppose that my ex-boyfriend and I had just got the bus further down and then spent a very short time here. Perhaps we were just waiting for a new bus connection. I thought that I would have remembered visiting, but it completely escaped me, so it must have been a quick stop-off. I have a photograph of the high street with the Poole Aquarium.
I also saw the marina and got a photograph of one of the pubs on the seafront. I have visited Poole probably half a dozen times now as they host car shows here in the summer months on Friday evenings. (Visit my post to see pictures of MINIs in Poole.)
Leave a comment