As we sailed away from the narrow streets of Old Portsmouth where press gangs roamed in Nelson’s day, my wife and I were already studying the leaflets and maps which you collect on the ferry across the Solent.

On the Isle of Wight, there’s always something new to see: another multi-million pound facelift at impressive Osborne House (Queen Victoria’s favourite home), a new waterfront pub, or yet another exhibition with tales of dinosaurs and Roman invaders.

With careful planning, you won’t need much cash to see this island. Many visitors explore its 148 square miles by bus, and there are 500 miles of footpaths for walkers and cyclists, often with amazing views across vast open spaces.

The tourist season offers a long programme of events. The Walking Festival in early May focuses on 30 miles of Heritage coast and areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty which make up more than half the island.

Carisbrooke Castle, where they held Charles I just before he lost his head in Whitehall, is well worth a visit – English Heritage’s film in the visitor centre is a masterpiece in making history interesting to any who missed out on the subject at school.

In the middle of Ryde, you can land by catamaran at The Pier, walk up the main ‘olde worlde’ Union Street, or visit the town’s newest attractions – the Postcard Museum.

Dedicated to the artist Donald McGill, the master of the double entendre, it houses a splendid selection of saucy postcards featuring nervous brides and randy vicars which sold in British seaside resorts in the 1950s.

Ryde has a stylish, cosmopolitan feel, but head west on the island, and there’s a different atmosphere: remote, unspoiled, slower-paced.

That’s where we found our holiday base, the West Bay Club, with holiday cottages surrounded by walkways, weeping willows and open lawns. It’s just outside the charming port of Yarmouth, where narrow streets fill with traffic when ferries pull in from Lymington.

At this end of the island, you’re barely aware of other visitors – even in midsummer.

On our first night, we only found the restaurant sitting on stilts above the beach at one end of wide, curving Totland Bay with the help of a local showing us the way.

The next morning. we tackled a breezy stretch of the Tennyson Trail – the famous poet who became the Poet Laureate lived here for 40 years, because he reckoned the air was “worth sixpence a pint”.

We also visited Ventnor, where the subtropical climate enables yuccas and other plants to flourish in the celebrated Botanic Gardens.

We walked down to Steephill Cove, where maritime shacks and fishing boats encircle a play area which has become a magnet for families, before strolling along the clifftops and beyond the wide sandy beach to the tiny hamlet of Bonchurch around the bay.

If you venture east of Ryde, you will find the atmosphere changes yet again.

Splendid houses are dotted along the seafont, and six miles of sandy beaches stretch from Ryde pier to Seaview, famous for sailing and often called ‘Chelsea by the Sea’.

Beyond the village is the Priory Bay Hotel, which looks and feels like a country house owned by the same family for generations – and elegantly dog-eared around the edges.

In summer, a barbecue area serves lunches on a wooded terrace above the hotel’s private beach, edged by trees and enjoying magnificent views across the eastern Solent.

On a sunny, summer day, this setting compares with the South of France – or even Barbados. No wonder Queen Victoria lined up her bathing machine to make the most of it, a mile or two along the shore!