Sights
Portsmouth combines great shopping, eating and drinking with stunning attractions and centuries of history - all on the water's edge. Get your bearings from the lofty decks of the space-age Spinnaker Tower, featuring Europe’s largest glass floor, shop or dine at the Gunwharf Quays, stroll the Southsea promenade, catch a show at either the New Theatre Royal or King’s Theatre - or a Premiership match at Fratton Park. Up Pompey!

But if culture and history is more your thing then why not visit Dickens' birthplace, now preserved as a museum, check out the award-winning Sherlock Holmes collection, on view at the City Museum and, of course, don’t miss Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, home to the world-famous HMS Victory - see where Nelson fell at the Battle of Trafalgar - and Henry VIII's Mary Rose.

Scene
Let the costal breezes waft you to The Old Vic (104 St Paul’s Road; T: 023 9229 7013; www.oldvicportsmouth.co.uk), set in its Mock Tudor mansion, the oldest bar barnacle in town and infamous site of naval anti-gay witch-hunts in the late 80s and early 90s, when the MoD placed its hidden camera on the first floor windows of the offices opposite! Things have come a long way since then and it’s a logical first bay to cast anchor, screw on your land legs and start your inland Portsmouth foray. It offers your usual traditional queer staple of drag, karaoke and quizzes plus the finest pub grub around.

Or if you’re still warming up for that big club night out, totter over the road to the eternally trendy Hampshire Boulevard (1 Hampshire Terrace; T: 023 9229 7509; www.thehampshireboulevard.co.uk) where all the bright young things hang out ship-shape along its lengthy bar or in the spacious summer decks outside to the aft. Cabaret, bingo and cruising galore.

Then it’s a ten minute shanty uptown past the quaint Guildhall district with its Theatre Royal, City Hall and University, to Martha’s & Club 227 (227 Commercial Road; T: 023 9285 2951; www.marthas-227.co.uk). Martha's has one of the world’s longest bars and lots of room for pool and pre-club boogies around the back. 227 above is the only gay club proper in town - small yet beautifully apportioned with a stage and several chill-out zones around the main floor. Student night Mondays.

Divine Disco (@ Jongleurs, Gun Wharf Quay; T: 023 9229 8563; www.divinedisco.com) is a popular club night, on the first Sunday of every month plus Bank Holidays, with a large crowd and crazy DJs spinning out massive dance anthems.

And if the old horn pipe’s still strangely aloft, there’s a range of options for the poor shivered timber. Just a spit and a spunk from 227, try Tropics Sauna (2 Market Way; T: 023 9229 6100; www.tropics-sauna.com), though its steamy cabins are perversely only open afternoons and evenings, not nights or Sundays. If it’s late night fayre you’re after, outdoor cruising’s rife back down at South Parade around Henry VIII’s little old castle by the sea, though beware - a giant straight club backs onto the area and groups of drunken het hunks have been known to maraud.

Far safer is the gay nudist beach by day, wonderfully aptly right beneath the MoD’s rotating radar, a half hour ramble along the coast - follow the coastal road eastward ho until it bends left, then take the single track on the first right, following it between the caravan site and the MoD HQ. You’ll soon reach a beach with a sign plainly foretelling of nudity. Waft yet further east along the beach and cast your towel. The MoD radar won’t be the only thing picking up naked men!

Stay
Of course, with legal protections now in place, you should be able to lay your queer head at any hotel in town, but do check out aptly-named, explicitly gay-wooing Queen's Hotel (Clarence Parade, Osbourne Road; T: 023 92822466; www.queenshotelportsmouth.co.uk) offering superb views of the Solent and Isle of Wight, on the historic Southsea seafront, near scene and sights.

Find out all the latest gay travel information by ordering the brand new 2008 Spartacus International Gay Guide. Get it online and save some money to put towards the other Bruno Gmunder guides - Hotel and Restaurant Guide and Sauna Guide.