UK trip notes

[da]

Friday, 2 September, 2010-
Train to Llandudno, Wales
This is beautiful countryside we're passing through. I wish I were less jetlagged to enjoy it. I slept about 4 hours on the plane, not solidly, and I'm looking forward to a nap when we get to the B&B in Wales.  KLM as transatlantic airline? Thumbs up. The food was good, the seat-back electronics worked better than Air Canada's (dan and I played tetris head-to-head, which was a lot of fun), and the seats reclined more than I expected.  This was the first time since 1995 I'd been on a two-story airplane, though of course I didn't get to go upstairs and check out first-class...
--
Napped on the train, with earplugs, noise-canceling headphones, AND music playing. Successfully drowned out two loud chattering children across the aisle.

Saturday, 3 September, 2010-
Llandudno, Wales, Can-y-Bae B&B
What a charming town. It's a resort with a lot of Victorian architecture, on the base of a peninsula that ends in a tall hill, the Great Orme (so named by the Vikings for the word for a serpent). To the other side, there is Little Orme. I guess they were supposed to look like sea-serpents when covered in fog. They are certainly pretty.  We walked around town, soaking up the sun, and walked to the end of a half-mile-long Victorian pier, which was actually sort of tacky and Niagara-falls-kitch for the things they were selling. And the promenade featured a Punch and Judy show that both d. and I found creepy (in a creepy-clown sort of way).

We had dinner at the B&B. Oof, so much fried. I'd posted a photo of the town to Facebook, and a friend Jesse replied that we should try their local beer. (!) He was here with another friend, just after he ran the Dublin marathon. And so I tried the local microbrew, and lo, the Great Orme Merlin was excellent.

This morning, we had a Full English Breakfast (bacon, eggs, sausage, toast, baked beans, fried mushrooms, tea. And dan got black pudding; I tried a bit. Ugh.) and thus fortified, we went to the top of Great Orme by cable-car, which has been running since 1902.  Beautiful views from the top, of a sheep farm, an old church, and of course the ocean. Neither of us saw any of the feral goats, unfortunately.

Then, we took a bus to Conwy Castle, just 20 minutes out of town. This was the first Big Castle I'd visited, so I was sort of blown away by the scale. It was carved into the top of a big hill. There were 5 or 6 towers, plus high town walls (with some 20 towers) wrapping around the old town all the way down to the ocean. An amazing amount of stone-work.

Inside the old town, there was another major exhibit, a Tudor-era estate house, with lots of stone and plasterwork, including a very fine servant's dining room.

Possibly my favorite feature in the town was a two-way road which punched through a section of castle wall, a tiny gap in a deep channel, which I'm sure would do fine to protect the town from invading taxis.

We made it back to Llandudno, collected our bags, and caught an afternoon bus to our next stop in Wales, further along the coast to the west.

Sunday, 4 September, 2010-
Caernarfon, Wales, Menai Bank B&B

The B&B last night was.. OK, not standout. We had views of the ocean over a roundabout, and a petrol station. When we asked the front-desk person where the centre of town was, he said, "you know where X food store is, right?" Um, no, see, we just got here.  Yeesh.

Caernafon Castle, in the centre of town, was outstanding. It was built as the base for Charles I, who spent a great amount of effort taking over Wales in the 1200s; he designed this castle to appear Roman in style, which would appeal to Welsh sensibilities and convince them of his moral right to power.  Caernafon is the largest of six standing castles, roughly in a ring, encircling Wales; the imposing force of a conquering nation. It only sort of worked- Caernafon was attacked by the Welsh over the un-finished walls facing the town, and the English were nearly defeated there.

I found a reprint of a late-1800s painting which showed some crumbling towers, and tried to photograph the same towers today, but the painter seems to have taken liberties with the perspective. I did end up climbing a few towers and following walkways to see if I could recreate that perspective, which was a fun ramble.

We had an excellent dinner, in a downtown restaurant called "Castell", and today we're on to Liverpool.

Monday 5 Sept. 2010-
Liverpool, Albert Dock, Staybridge Suites
We took coach bus and train from Wales yesterday, after another full English breakfast at the B&B (I'm not sure my heart will take many more of those). Saw more countryside, changed trains once in Chester, which my guide-book says is a walled city worth visiting, so I'll be back while dan's working.  As a travel day, Sunday was so-so. The routing from Caerfarnon was tough(er) because Sunday's bus schedule is sparse. But we made all our connections. ...And then there were two incidents on the train.

The first, the train car we got onto (marked "Quiet car") had reserved seating (which we hadn't been told about when buying) and the seat reservation display was busted, so there were repeated "you're in my seat. Oh, pardon me"s. And then it got more awkward, when a woman got on the train and didn't take kindly to her interlopers, who asked if she could swap with them because they had an infant and lots of luggage. This was all dramatic, because the one woman didn't have a volume knob, and she shrieked at them for being impolite and disturbing the quiet car. There were a few laughs around the car at that; the people beside me were fit to be tied at how rude the loud lady was.  But the thing is, she had some sort of troubles herself; she said repeatedly that she was handicapped, and she needed the seats she'd reserved; and it wasn't her fault they had a child. "I could have a child also."  A man a few seats behind me said loudly, "what, right now?" and everyone in earshot laughed. Things died down, but started up again when the conductor came through for tickets, and I eventually said to the woman next to me, "I'm glad we got a quiet car."

Then, on the last leg of the trip, inside Liverpool, some loud drunks got on, and they were escorted off a few stops later by a team of 6 or 8 policemen and women, wearing caution-yellow and coat and tie outfits.

And then we walked to our hotel and checked in and had dinner and got Ben and Jerry's for desert.

Tuesday, 6 September, 2010-
Liverpool, Albert Dock, Staybridge Suites

Yesterday I spent the morning in Chester, a well-preserved medieval walled city, with origins in a 1st century Roman encampment, and a mish-mash of architectural styles ranging from Tudor, Georgian, and Victorian, with many half-timbered buildings, though I preferred the stone buildings. I ended up walking most of the 3km wall, which had very good interpretive signs. I saw (and walked through) "the second most photographed clock in Britain," a gold-trimmed two-story device built into the city wall (which was nowhere near the edge of the city at this point).  There was a Roman Amphitheatre, just outside the city walls, mixed in with the edge of a 17th-century church. And there was a neat display of how the Roman hilled walls became stone walls became higher stone walls as the town became a major shipping port in the 1400s-1600s.

Disappointments: there is a "Town Crier" every day except Monday, which I didn't realize until he or she didn't show up at the appropriate place. I tried to find Chester Castle, which was fairly heavily blocked by construction around the oldest part, and none of it was open for tours.  There were other town tours, also not running on Monday.

Then by train back to Liverpool; as I expected, Liverpool museums were closed on Monday as well.

So I went and bought a discount card, which got me into various attractions in Liverpool for the rest of the week.  (For  £30, I got at least £45 value, including unlimited downtown bus travel.)  Since I had time before I would meet Dan, I ended up at the Beatles exhibit. Well, one of the many such exhibits; I basically ignored the Beatles for the rest of the week. I am not a Fan.  I did enjoy the exhibit, though.

Tuesday, I took a guided bus-tour of downtown, which answered a few questions I'd had.  The official town emblem is a "Liverbird", a combination of a Cormerant and an eagle; there are a pair of them, each 8 meters high, on a prominent downtown 19th-century building.  The Liverbird is not to be confused with the "Super Lambanana", a project installed a decade ago. This is a bright yellow anime-styled lamb creature with a banana tail, which there were a few remaining statues up (out of some few hundred that were around the city in 2008).  

From the bus, I also saw the large Chinatown gates, a large Banksy mural, both of the town's cathedrals, and an imposing 18th-century Hall which was supposed to be worth visiting. My overall impression of the city, by this point, was that they really liked to design things large-scale, probably more so than the city needed.  Both cathedrals were started toward the beginning of the 20th century.

In the afternoon, I went to the top of the Anglican Cathedral, which turns out to have been fairly scary. So, you go up a tiny elevator 4 flights, then walk a skinny tunnel across the base of the tower, then another tiny elevator 10 floors, then walking 4 stories of concrete stairs open to the inside of the tower, which was windy, and provoked for me an impressive little bit of agoraphobia/acrophobia. I think it was the wind, combined with the relatively unsupported staircases, and the open space below, looking down on the bells. But I made it to the top of the stairs, which opened on a 50'x50' roof with views in all directions. There was a little hut, with a guide there to answer questions, and half a dozen other visitors, some huddled in acrophobic clumps. I got a few dozen photos, which I think turned out well. 

Later in the afternoon I took a ferry ride across the Mersey River, which was pretty, and got me great views of the shipyards on the opposite side of the river. They are building an aircraft carrier, according to a bus-driver I talked with.

The locals I've talked with on this trip have been quite friendly, even if we both have problems understanding each other's accents. I listened to lots of people on public transit, and for two nights, all I can remember from my dreams are the strangers talking in Scouse lilits.  (Scouse is both a nickname for the accent; and a mishmosh soup the area is known for). 

I made it to Walker Art Gallery, where there were a number of British artists I didn't know, and a few Monets, Seurats, and Degas, but none of them were "Oh wow" moments. 

Thursday, 9 September, 2010-
Somewhere over the North Atlantic.

Yesterday, my last day of touring, was spent at the Tate Liverpool museum, which was between traveling exhibits but they had three floors of permanent exhibits. I had expected to take an hour; it ended up taking me close to two hours. There was a really neat mirrored box, three feet on a side, with round holes cut into it, with a mirrored inside surface, which I did like. 

In the afternoon, dan and I took a long walk; to the gift-shop of the Anglican cathedral, where I wanted to get something for dan's mom; and then to the Catholic cathedral, which was a monstrosity of modern architecture that we both had to see in person. Then we wandered for a bit, had dinner, and prepped to leave early in the morning.

The flight, so far, has been fine; Delta trans-Atlantics feel much the same as Air Canada's.  The next stage will be two nights at dan's parents' house in Centerport, followed by one night at my Aunt's in Northport. Then home.

You know, I'm looking forward to home.

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