On England’s Isle of Wight, variety’s the thing

On a rainy March morning, the catamaran from Portsmouth, England, churns across the English Channel to the Isle of Wight, leaving the busy seaport in its wake. Sitting on the deck, I feel a small thrill of anticipation. My father and brothers, who once sailed its waters, and my son, who has vacationed there, have all told me about the isle’s hearty, simple beauty. Now I’ll see it for myself.

Gulls swoop overhead and the mainland disappears during the 20-minute ride, while on board, an almost imperceptible change takes place. People seem to relax into a slower rhythm, and conversation quiets. At last we pull into the dock at the town of Ryde.

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My family members aren’t the only ones who have been seduced by the Isle of Wight’s rolling green hills and thriving farms, the villages nestled along the shore and the crystalline air. In decades past, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Charles Dickens, John Keats, Ivan Turgenev and Lewis Carroll, as well as Winston Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi and Charles Darwin stayed here for months or even years. And Jimi Hendrix played one of his last concerts here, in 1970, at the Isle of Wight Festival.

Music is big here. The festival brings in superstars every June — this year, Kings of Leon and Foo Fighters headline — and crowds that reach 75,000. Bestival, which has the hippie vibe of the original Isle of Wight Festival, draws almost as many people every September. My guide, Simon Dabell, remembers the landmark Hendrix concert at the festival, which also featured such performers as Miles Davis, the Doors and the Who. Today he rents out some of his land to Bestival.

Simon also owns two family amusement parks on the island. But more significantly for me, his ancestors go back to the 1820s on the Isle of Wight, and he knows everything about it.

“It’s the variety that’s so remarkable,” he says as we drive from Ryde to the ivy-covered Priory Bay Hotel along a winding, wooded road. More a country estate than an ordinary hotel, the Priory Bay seemed the most relaxing choice for my stay. I drop my bag, looking forward to walking its grounds and beach later in the day.

It takes almost no time into our two-day excursion to see what Simon means about variety. Although the island is only 147 square miles — 23.5 miles long and 13 miles wide — it boasts long, sandy beaches; dramatic chalk cliffs; a castle; majestic historic houses; lush gardens; cozy towns; walking paths; extensive boating facilities and Roman ruins. The British government has designated half of the island an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It has also had a long, varied and complex history and is known as one of the richest locations of dinosaur fossils in Europe. You can find fossilized trees and dinosaur bones from 20 million years ago in Compton, Brook and Brighstone bays. Museums at Dinosaur Isle and the Dinosaur Farm display early discoveries and arrange tours to the bays.

Traces of Iron and Bronze Age settlements have also been discovered all over the island. But only the Romans, who arrived around A.D. 43, left significant evidence of their life here. So Simon and I head to the Brading Roman Villa. The earlier rain has left the grass and trees sparkling in the afternoon sun. Sheep graze on the verdant hills.