Kurt spends his time trotting the world seeking the finest. He’s a respected reviewer with over 20 years experience, so knows a thing or two about it and isn’t shy to give his opinion – Ed.
OK, this is VentnorBlog, not Isle of Wight Blog, (hey Kurt it’s not just about Ventnor! ;-) Ed) and I imagine that you’ve guessed that it’s Ventnor and the surrounding area that I inhabit when I come to the Island.
Why? Well, in 2007, a very old pal and colleague with whom I was staying, on the mainland, having listened to me chat away exhaustingly about the large number of my Victorian singers who had Wight-ish connections, offered to bring me down on a ‘research’ day trip.
I couldn’t say ‘yes’ quick enough. We drove from Croydon, car-ferried across, visited the celebrated Michael Maybrick’s grave in Ryde, searched the library and churchyard in Sandown for the Misses Alessandri, touristed down the streets of Shanklin, and (before trips to the Needles, Freshwater etc) paused for lunch on the Esplanade, Ventnor. And, as we lunched, I looked across the pretty, largely unspoiled, bay at a couple of upstairs ‘holiday flats’ and thought: this is ‘me’. I could do with a month of this next summer.
Thought into deed
Later that year, when I surfed my New Zealand Internet to see what might be available in Ventnor in the summer of 2008, I couldn’t find the flats. But another name popped up. Just one. And the place sounded magic. Just what I – recently bereaved, with writing deadlines to meet, and in search of calm and beauty and quiet – needed. So I emailed “¦
I am now in my third long stay at Hermitage Court Farm, way up on St Catherine’s Downs, and I can truthfully say that, in all my decades of travelling, I have never stayed in a lovelier place.
OK, you aren’t reading this to hear me gush. And I am sure (and see from TripAdvisor and its kind) that other folk have been equally delighted with other places in and around the Ventnor area. But this one is mine. And I am not going to swap it. Ever.
Tell the world
But if there really are a dozen, two dozen, three dozen hotels and B&Bs in this area that are as good as this one, then wow! – the world should be beating its way to your doors. Is it? If not, someone should be letting the world know the facts.
Because TripAdvisor, for example, doesn’t put Ventnor’s facilities anywhere near the top of what the island has to offer. ‘My’ place – number one on my personal all-time, world-wide list — is listed ludicrously as Isle of Wight B&B number 23!
Yeah, yeah, TripAdvisor. But Google rules, my friends, Facebook rules “¦ and even if their ratings and reviews are way off beam, people read them, and lots of people believe them.
The Internet age
This is the Internet age.
I won’t complain. After all, the Internet led me here. And what I have found here has brought me back. To enjoy and to grumble about. Which is what I’ll do in my next update.
PS: TripAdvisor’s ‘Number One’ in the local B&B stakes is ‘The Enchanted Manor’ just down my hill at Niton. The name is off-putting, and I have limited confidence in the ‘hit parade’, but evidently I need to go and check it out (update: Kurt checked it out, see what he thought of The Enchanted Manor).
You see?
