England and Ireland: England. Part 1: Liverpool

Liverpool, Merseyside

We arrived in Manchester, England in the morning on Saturday after a couple of very long flights, and we hit the ground running. Well, er, rolling. We wanted to stay awake the whole day to stave off jet-lag, so we caught a train from Manchester to Liverpool and immediately found our History Taxi Tour guide, Phil.  He ushered us into his cute little UK taxi and showed us the sights around Liverpool for a couple hours.

The Royal Liver Building with its famous Liver Birds atop.

The Monument to the Engine Room Heroes of the Titanic

Liverpool has ties to the US Civil War, including this Confederate Embassy.

This Pietà is all that is left from the demolished Holy Cross Church. It sits in a public garden in a residential area.

This plaque is in front of the Pietà.

John Lennon's Birth Place, now student housing

A view of the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral (Catholic). Finished in 1968

The inside of the Liverpool Cathedral (Anglican). It was finished in 1978. It is HUGE and GAUDY.         Make your own judgement on which Liverpool cathedral wins the Ugly Award.                             

A column on some building or other.

Viking ship at the Albert Dock.

Needless to say, the first night we were quite tired, so we had our first cider of the trip and a meal at a nearby Italian place (I know, I know! Italian?!), and we settled in for a long night's sleep.

The next day we took the Ferry 'Cross the Mersey (and back). It was a nice day for a cruise. Sunny and and just a little breezy!

You can see our reflection in the window at this dock.

Did you know that the River Mersey is a tidal river? I didn't even know there were such things as tidal rivers! One of many things I learned on this vacation!

Gulls enjoying the river-side at low tide.

After our river cruise, we stopped in a tea shop at the Albert Dock for our first afternoon tea of the trip. Oh, my. I fell in love with scones with jam and clotted cream. The cream is so good! It is wonderfully thick and slightly sweet. I appreciate the ritual of the afternoon tea. So much so, that I went out and got some scones from Trader Joe's and found some Devonshire cream at Whole Foods Market and have been enjoying the experience again over the last few days. YUM!

We had our first fish-n-chips in Liverpool. We were surprised, after having been served small strips of fish in our USA fish-n-chips experiences, to be served an entire half-fish battered and fried up! And they don't skimp on the chips, either! Luckily, there are no weight-scales while on vacation!

Scattered around Liverpool are many incarnations of the Superlambanana.  Here is the original and a couple others:

Photo by Cynthia Pacia

Since on the first night, we were too zonked to enjoy the nightlife, on the second night we went out and stopped in this famous club:

There was a boss girl band playing, but the club was too noisy for Trish, so we continued along in search of quieter climes.  At least we can say we went to The Cavern Club!

We were impressed by Liverpool. It has a lot of history! We visited the International Slavery Museum and learned how the city and its economy (and the economy of Great Britain in general) was entrenched in the slave trade. One tidbit: recent city leaders wanted to show condemnation of the city's participation in the Slave Trade by changing all the street names that were named for prominant people involved in the trade. One problem: Penny Lane was one of them. Since they couldn't easily change the name of that street, none of them were changed.

We enjoyed browsing a bit at Albert Dock, a huge historical dock that now houses restaurants, museums, and (what else?) a mall. And, of course, the Titanic sailed from Liverpool, and the White Star Line's offices were housed in a building that stood next to our hotel.

This building housed the White Star Line's offices.

Liverpool was very clean and bustling with young families and tourists. I expected a mostly industrial, dirty city, and it was in the recent past, but it is quite a nice city!

Go visit!



Click here to go to Part 2: Stratford-Upon-Avon