Arrived in St. Helier on Friday evening after an uneventful ferry ride from Guernsey. St. Helier is definitely bigger and flatter than St. Peter Port, they even have double-decker buses!
Saturday dawned bright and sunny, and I walked into town, and down to the marina and Liberation Square . I went and looked at the Occupation Tapestry. This comprises 12 panels, one done by each of the 12 parishes of jersey, each illustrating a different aspect of the German Occupation. I mentioned when writing about Guernsey that the German Occupation and the Liberation are always remembered, and this is also true of Jersey, and presumably the other islands. A short film at the Occupation Tapestry exhibit told how they have decided to keep the events of 1940-1945 "alive" and to teach young people about them, rather than let them be forgotten. Fortunately I am always interested in WW II (and WW I for that matter); if you are not interested, then probably visiting the Channel Islands isn't for you.
Saturday afternoon, being rather tired of walking, I took a short open-top bus tour to the west of the Island to admire the scenery (and more German fortifications!) Then took in the Town Church (of course); this is referred to as the Town Church, as in St. Peter Port, and is dedicated to St. Helier, a 6th century hermit. Fortunately by this time I didn't mind walking, as I got lost going back to my hotel and probably walked twice as far as I needed to. St. Helier may be flat, unlike St. Peter Port, but you can still walk a fair distance to get anywhere.
Sunday, I took an "all day tour" by bus, around the island. This was informative and I saw places I wouldn't otherwise see, though a couple were repeats of yesterday's afternoon tour. The major complaint I have about this tour is that we did not stop long enough at most of the "stops" to see everything properly . We stopped at St. Catherine's Bay, where we saw a magnificent sand sculpture, also a woman selling Akubra hats (genuinely made in Australia) for less than we would pay for them at home! No corks, but. Apparently Health and Safety didn't like them!
Monday, I went to the Jersey War Tunnels. These are underground tunnels, similar to those on Guernsey, which the Germans "dug" out of the rock, for a hospital. However, Jersey have turned theirs into a museum depicting life in Jersey under the Occupation. his was very interesting, informative and quite moving. However, it is now official - I am "over" WWII - for the moment!
Also, went into St. Matthew's Church, which is known as the Glass Church as it has a great deal of glass, crafted by Rene Lalique on commission from Florence, Lady Boot, widow of the son of the founder of Boots the Chemist, and dedicated to her husband. This is a bit OTT but apparently considered the "only remaining complete example of Lalique's heavy clouded glass." So sayeth the BBC!
Tuesday I took the amphibious ferry to Elizabeth Castle . Originally built in the16th century, it has been added to and remodelled over the centuries, most recently by - you've guessed it - the Germans in WWII! It stood for the Royalists in the Civil War a and even housed Charles II for a while before he was declared king, in Jersey. There is an outcrop of rock on which the hermit St. Helier is purported to have lived around 550 AD - not sure about that at all. The rock is now at the end of a breakwater. There was also a demonstration of how to fire a flintlock musket and prime and fire a cannon, which was very interesting, not to say amusing, as several men in the audience were 'volunteered' to become infantrymen of 1781, the time of the Battle of Jersey, against the French (who else?) in the American Civil War.
Came back to shore on the amphibious ferry, except by now the tide was out so it didn't need the water propulsion.
Also to be noted is that the first airfield in Jersey, in operation from 1933 to 1937, was on the beach at St. Aubin's Bay, so the flight schedules were governed by the tide, as the beach is covered at high tide!