Cruising the world

For the first bank holiday of 2009, we decided to stay in England. As we are temporarily living with my sister Hayley and her partner Kirk, we decided to jump in the car and head north of London to get a taste of English countryside, after around two weeks living in London. It was great to see some countryside and have excellent tour guides too! Kirk did a great job all weekend, doing all the driving. We stopped off for some breakfast at Newport. This little town didn't feature on the Lonely Planet's list so we were on the look out for a greasy spoon. We stumbled across the Newport Market and Trading Company. We had a quick breakfast and then had a rummage around the stalls. James found a pair of work trousers and a deal on some cream eggs - bargain! Back in the car, we weren't far from the Welsh border, so decided to make a detour and see where Pop came from. After a photo opportunity at the "Welcome to Wales" sign, we headed to Trevor to check out the Pontcysyllte aqueduct on the Llangollen canal, where we spotted some canal boats. Next stop was Cefn Mawr where Pop was born before moving onto Llangollen. We had a look through the village. It is such a pretty village, particularly the weir. We checked out the taxidermy shop to see what a mole and badger looked like. A couple of miles earlier in the trip we thought that we came across a dead pig in the middle of the road. Turns out the roadkill was actually badger, and there were loads of them. So the taxidermist was quite an interesting stop. Next we headed up to the local deli and bought a Welsh Oggie for lunch (like a Cornish Pasty). Then onto Chester, where we'd booked a B&B for the weekend. It was OK, and as expected had an eccentric owner who reminded us of Basil Fawlty. We set off into Chester to have a look around. Chester has a lot of Tudor and Victorian buildings, and is an old Roman town with the original town walls dating back to AD70. We saw the Eastgate clock built for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897. We visited the Chester Cathedral, which was absolutely lovely to walk around. We then found this good old fashioned pub called The Falcon. A round of pints for us was £5.60! So we stayed for a few, got chatting to the locals and had such a good time catching up. After breakfast with the eccentric Basil Fawlty look-a-like serving us, we headed to Liverpool for the day. We drove around the city and got our bearings, driving past the two Cathedrals - Liverpool Cathedral which is the largest Anglican cathedral in Europe and Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King which is shaped like a tee pee. After parking we headed down to Albert Dock, home to the Beatles Museum - our main purpose for coming to Liverpool. "The Beatles Story" Museum was great - we spent a couple of hours getting back to their roots and learnt a lot about how they got to become one of the most successful bands of all time. It was definitely worth a visit and is great to do a different kind of museum. We spent a few hours walking the rest of Albert Dock including a quick visit to the Merseyside Maritime Museum where we learnt that the Titanic was registered in Liverpool (though quite obviously didn't ever visit). Next stop was to head to Mathew Street, home to the venue which kick started the Beatles career, the Cavern Club. While not quite the original, it was great to get a taste of what it would have been like. Over a few pints we had such a good time listening to the live band, singing away to Beatles songs plus a few others. It really was fantastic. And on the outside of the club is a wall dedicated to the musicians who have played at the Cavern Club. The only New Zealand band that we saw was "Hello Sailor" - with one of their songs the theme tune to Outrageous Fortune. We decided we better stop with the drinking and check out a bit more of Liverpool. St George's Hall and the Liverpool Museum and Planetarium were the heart of Liverpool's historic area. It was getting darker so we had some Greek for dinner before a final pint at the famous Philharmonic, with an interior featuring etched and stained glass, wrought iron, mosaics and ceramic tiling. It was midnight by the time we arrived back at the B&B in Chester. We waved good bye to Basil after another hearty English breakfast. We jumped in the car to head back to London, taking a couple of detours - one was to Shrewsbury, birthplace to Charles Darwin. We had a quick look at the Castle grounds which were beautifully manicured and had a great view over Shropshire. The other detour was to check out a staircase lock on the Shropshire Union Canal. It was a fantastic bank holiday weekend.