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Photo: Suicasmo, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Although officially a summer home for Queen Victoria, she used it as her main residence for some time after the death of Prince Albert, her husband. Now owned and operated by English Heritage, most of the well-preserved house and grounds are open to visitors year-round. Visitors planning to visit both Osborne House and Carisbrooke Castle should consider becoming members of English Heritage; it can work out cheaper than buying individual tickets for family groups and allows free access to all other English Heritage properities for the rest of the year.
Osborne House is a former royal residence in East Cowes, Isle of Wight, United Kingdom. The house was built between 1845 and 1851 for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert as a summer home and rural retreat. Albert designed the house in the style of an Italian Renaissance palazzo. The builder was Thomas Cubitt, the London architect and builder whose company built the main façade of Buckingham Palace for the royal couple in 1847. An earlier smaller house on the Osborne site was demolished to make way for the new and far larger house, though the original entrance portico survives as the main gateway to the walled garden.
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Famous for the many colours of sand which appear naturally on the beach. A traditional souvenir of the Isle of Wight is a picture or glass paperweight filled with the different colours - there are many stalls where you can get the wherewithal to make your own if you are so inclined. The bay is close to The Needles (see below) and accessible by stairs or by a ski resort-style chairlift.