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.
Ventnor ‘caught’ me in the first place because it is attractive.
The characterful little streets of the town, the way it towers up the cliffs like the Victorian English equivalent of so many villages I know in the south of France. But, in the end, the town’s prize possession is its beach, and the Esplanade.
It’s not a spectacular beach – I, after all, come from New Zealand of the ten-mile golden sands – but it’s a nice beach. A very ‘English’ beach. A very comfortable, agreeable beach. And, yes, its got something of that ‘period’ feel about it which I – and so many other travellers and tourists – like.
Much of the Island has that air, and that, I reckon, is its big selling point.
If I want plastic skyscrapers, junk food and puce-whale sunbathers, I can go (shudder) to Ibiza or Majorca. I don’t. I go to Berlin and Paris and, for the seaside, to Jersey or a Pacific island. Or here.
Great potential”¦
The bay of Ventnor has all the raw material of a truly welcoming beauty spot in the arc between its two memorable monuments: the Spyglass Inn (of which more anon) and the Winter Gardens (of which a lot more anon).
I understand it has been labelled a ‘Conservation Area’, but I don’t really know what that means. Does it mean nothing must change? It can’t: for that big blue construction that looks in need of several Building Inspectors’ attention (or a wrecker’s ball) is evidently modern, and I see a hole and boarding where a pretty old house used to be. So what is being ‘conserved’?
And by whom? And why?
The penny arcade and some of the little shops make it seem as if Ventnor is trying to keep alive the century-old tradition of the British seaside resort – ‘What the Butler Saw’, scone teas and donkey rides – but is that what people want these days? If it is, why don’t you have a pierrot show in the Winter Gardens. And rebuild the pier? No, I think not. Those days are (sadly?) gone.
But Ventnor is still here. And it needs to live and thrive.
Come, take my money!
The town exists very largely for the holidaymaker, does it not? I imagine the town lives significantly on what the holidaymaker brings. And the Esplanade is Ventnor’s ‘shop window’.
It needs to be as attractive, as inviting and as user-friendly to the money-bringing visitor as possible. And, sorry guys, it isn’t.
In my four visits to the Isle of Wight, I have only twice opened my wallet between the bottom of Zig Zag Road and the Winter Gardens. And I regretted one of those two times. So why should I go back? You need to give me a reason. Yes, me. Because I’m the kind of traveller who, as he heads around the world, spends his money – as long as he gets value — happily and freely. And you have to convince me and my kind to spend it happily and freely in Ventnor. Which, right now, and for two very specific reasons, I don’t.
The said specifics will be the subject of my next chunk of musings.
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