I have been visiting various universities across the South West with my daughter for their open days. I’ve not been posting those visits here as most times we have just been visiting the university campus, so didn’t really consider it being a place for my #50places2025 posts. However when we went to Plymouth we arrived early, so after visiting the university we had some time, we went to explore Plymouth. We visited the city centre, Plymouth Hoe, the quayside and the old town. The sun was shining and it was a lovely walk around the city.
My first visit to Plymouth was back in the 1980s on a school trip, well not quite a visit but was departing from there to Roscoff in France. It was quite a hike in the coach as at that time I was living in Cambridge.
In the early 2000s I would visit Plymouth quite often for meetings and attending conferences at the University of Plymouth. With changes in my job, I no longer needed to visit Plymouth. We did stop off there once in 2016 when we were travelling down to Cornwall, that was the last time I had been there until now.
Plymouth is an interesting city in many ways, the historic naval connections and the destruction during the second world war has influence how the city has grown and changed over the years.
The city centre is being redeveloped when we were there and you could see that the sea of concrete needed some much greenery and trees.
Plymouth Hoe is so different to the concrete of the centre. The green grass, Smeaton’s lighthouse, and the lido.
I do like the dockside and I remember going to bars there when I was attending conferences at the University of Plymouth.