Driving To Liverpool

Today was a low-key travel day as we continued north towards Scotland. Our destination was Liverpool. We made multiple stops to break the journey up mostly so that Nana could get out and stretch to relieve her chronic back pain. We loved the Marks & Spencer mini food stores attached to the petrol stations. It certainly brought back childhood memories of the biscuits I ate as a child in Singapore.

One notable stop was Gloucester. It was conveniently en route for us to see the magnificent Gloucester Cathedral. Built in its current form at around 1100, the Cathedral was famous as the burial place for King Edward II as well as housing one of England’s oldest medieval stained glass windows. For the children, however, the drawcard was that it was used as the majority of interior Hogwarts scenes within Harry Potter movie series. For the die-hard fans, details of these were readily available on the internet. If you were a history buff, there were many more interesting facts about Gloucester Cathedral such as - Henry the VIII and Anne Boleyn stayed for a week in the 1500s and the room they stayed in remained named the Henry Room. You need not be into history though, to appreciate the beautiful interior.

The Cathedral was hard to miss

The imposing central tower

Impressive entrance

The massive Norman columns untouched since their completion in the late 11th century

Can you imagine the Harry Potter scenes...

Examples of the gargoyles so restoration can be funded

....And the children do this

We made a detour crossing into Wales, the country with words of unpronounceable string of syllables, to buy telescopic fishing rods with reels. Unfortunately, our detour meant that we could not stop at Chester as originally planned, instead only driving through the best preserved walled city in England. Continuing north and crossing under the Mersey River, we finally arrived at Liverpool at 5pm. We dined at the reportedly newest and funkiest place to be, the Baltic Markets. It was essentially a glorified food court. The food was hit and miss. Some were tasty, others such as the souvlaki, were just awful. It served as a reminder for us to stick with what the English did best, English food or Indian.

The DoubleTree Liverpool was our home for the night. It was a gorgeous hotel, modernised tastefully with elegant interiors. It was a shame we didn’t have time to enjoy their facilities. We ended our day with a quick visit to The Cavern, the club famous as the birthplace of the Beatles

Wales!

Our detour so we can come here and buy fishing rods

The Brewery right outside the Baltic Markets

No doubt as to which city we're in

Baltic Markets

One of the more tasty meals. Korean. Not quite authentic but at least enjoyable

The Albany luck comes through. Prime parking spot right outside the Hotel entrance

One cookie for each of us

Cheers! Free drinks! Thank you Hilton

Victoria Street, Lliverpool

Just to say we've been there...