When we left the cruise terminal on June 10 to take a stroll in Old Town Southampton we felt we were walking into the medieval past of the city. We stepped on bricks which reminded us of historical events which took place there, emphasizing the Norman past of the town and how very old it was. Returning to the cruise terminal we realized that ships were the history of the town. That was how the Normans got there to begin with and why the town was important in terms of trade and shipping in more recent times. The way we had arrived in a ship was the way everybody arrived and why the walls where built to begin with in the 1360s and 1370s, why cannons were installed, etc. Sailing into and out of town on the QM2 we felt we were part of Southampton’s history.
