If Portsmouth has a front door for a day out, it is Gunwharf Quays. Built on the site of an old naval gunwharf on the edge of the harbour, it is part outlet shopping centre, part waterfront, and part launchpad for half the other things to do in the city. You can spend a whole day here without leaving the quayside, or use it as the place everything else begins. Either way it costs nothing to walk in.
Outlet shopping by the water
The draw for most people is the shopping. Gunwharf is a designer outlet centre with somewhere north of ninety stores, where high-street and premium brands sell last season’s stock at a discount, so it is the place locals head for trainers, coats and homeware when they want the label without the full price. The units run in open-air streets rather than a stuffy mall, which means you shop with the harbour air around you and the Spinnaker Tower overhead the whole time.
Eating and drinking on the harbour
The boardwalk along the water is lined with restaurants and bars, most with tables looking straight out across the harbour mouth to the boats coming and going. It runs from quick coffee and burgers to proper sit-down dinners, and on a warm evening a drink out on the quay as the sun drops behind the harbour is one of the city’s simple pleasures. “You come for the shops and stay for the view,” as one regular put it, which is about right.
More than shops
There is plenty here that has nothing to do with retail. The Spinnaker Tower rises straight out of the quay, with its glass floor and the best view in the city from the top. A multiscreen cinema, a bowling alley, a casino and a rolling calendar of events and sales mean there is usually something on, and it is a dependable wet-weather fallback when the seafront is a washout.
A launchpad for the rest of the city
Gunwharf’s other job is as a gateway. The Historic Dockyard and its great ships are a short walk round the harbour, the fast Isle of Wight ferry leaves from right beside it, and the Gosport ferry and the harbour railway station are on the doorstep. For a visitor without a car, there are few better places in Portsmouth to base a day.
Getting there and visiting
The centre sits next to Portsmouth Harbour station and The Hard Interchange, so the train and the bus both drop you almost at the gate, and there is a large multi-storey car park on site for drivers. It is open all year, free to wander whether you buy anything or not, and busiest on weekends and in the sales. Come for the shopping, the view or simply a harbour-side stroll, and let the rest of the day spin out from there.
