Great Western Coffee Shop

From the Dorset Echochocho (https://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/17948145.weymouth-named-one-best-place-visit-autumn/):

Seriously??!!!

I cut and pasted from the article - have just checked back and it's like that in the original - nothing to do with our forum's spell checker.

It's not a bad place to wander around or use as a base for a bit of wider exploration so I can see why it's suggested for an Autumn break. For the distance covered, it's a long train journey from where I am in Bristol but it's a fairly scenic route. Hmmm, I feel a day trip coming on.

Just to be clear, I'm pretty sure that it was the spelling that had ChrisB aghast.

For myself, I'm a huge fan of the Isle of White - though I haven't been for a while. It's certainly got more to offer than, say, Bridgewater or Middlesborough.

Once heard it described as the Izzel of Wiggut, which I thought was a badly named spell out of Catweazle. Oh dear, that dates me.....

Agreed, I'm also a fan of the IOW, unfortunately limited in train facilities (although the steam/electric railways are good), but there is the bus museum, Carisbrooke and Osborne enough to take a few days usefully. easy to spend a day over there in the summer without the car, buses cover most of the island, although frequency not ideal.

For me, an attraction in Weymouth was the tramway to the dockside.
Not a modern tramway for local passengers, but a proper main line train that ran through the streets. Splendid.
AFAIK it has not been formerly closed, but it is decades since the last train. I will be very surprised if it is ever regularly used again.

You might have already got the impression that I enjoy the Isle of Wight for the old railway tracks. Cowes,Newport to Sandown is a nice bike ride. The Southampton Cat to East Cowes (ECW) is folded bikes only, in a bag (the logic of which escapes me), but getting a through ticket does make it good value. If you go to West Cowes (WTW) you have to cross the River Medina so you are at the mercy of the unreliable chain ferry. An IoW resident told me over the weekend that part of the problem is that they bought too larger ferry and sometimes it can't travel because of tidal conditions.

For the New Forest, Brockenhurst to Poole via Ringwood and Wimborne on Castlemans Trail/Corkscrew. Once again virtually all old railway tracks.

For me both are easily accessible by Cross Country from Reading.

Didn't find Weymouth bike-friendly from my point of view, and without much walking tends to make for a note entirely enjoyable day.

Weymouth tramway, back in the good olde days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZSepvN4z4A (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZSepvN4z4A)