Warming up for the Isle of Wight Festival

This weekend it's the Isle of Wight Festival!  As ever there's a huge range of acts who must be making their way to the Island right now, most of whom must be checking the weather forecasts hoping it stays dry.  The headliners include Kings of Leon, Foo Fighters, Pulp, Kaiser Chiefs, Kasabian and a huge slew of other artists.

I can see one of my Wightstay co-workers already has their Messenger status set as 'FESTIVALLLLLL' so I suspect they're possibly going this weekend.  Isle of Wight Festival is now a huge event, with a 20,000 people increase from last year to 90,000 attendees.

Obviously this means Newport will be frantic during this weekend, but places like the West Wight will still provide quiet and tranquility for those wanting to get away from the hurly-burly of the Festival traffic.

We took a drive down the Military Road, the South Western coastal road, last night.  It was bathed in beautiful light as the sun went down.  Although it took us rather longer to drive, we've condensed it down for you, so why not have a watch:

This is the sort of reason (aside from the Isle of Wight Festival!) people come to the Island.  The coastal areas are largely unspoilt and have great, safe, clean water to swim in. Check out the list of beaches here.  There are three Blue Flag certified beaches at Ventnor, Shanklin and Sandown, as well as the more rural areas.

So, if you're here for the FESTIVALLLLLL (or the Bestival in September) don't forget to have a look around the rest of the Island - it is a stunner!