If there was one city which was at the top of my list to visit while in England, it was probably Liverpool. Liverpool has a special place in my heart, as it was once home to some of the coolest people you will ever meet. I'm referring, of course, to the Myles/Donelan clan (I bet you thought I was gonna say the Beatles, who are alright as well I guess). Having spent a year or so of my formative years in Liverpool I was keen to take a trip down memory lane. To be fair most of my memories come from photographs, but I still like to think my stay had some lasting effects on my childhood. In any case, Liverpool also has a reputation as a pretty cool city, with some quality museums, its famous docks, and the inescapable legacy of the Beatles. I'm sure every other international student was as grateful as I was when a travel organisation for students announced a daytrip to Liverpool, and they would never again have to hear me say "okay I'm definitely going to book a trip to Liverpool soon", for the hundredth time. And so it was that I found myself surprisingly eager to be getting on a coach at 7am on a Saturday morning.
The past two daytrips that I took were with societies run through the University of Nottingham, but this one was run by an external organisation, and it was unbelievably better organised than either of my previous trips. Instead of just dropping us off in the middle of a new city with a map and a thumbs up they actually had a planned itinerary, which you could follow or not as you pleased. Our bus dropped us off first outside the Cavern Club, a nightclub fashioned after the original club where the Beatles once played. This was definitely the biggest tourist area of Liverpool, and no one was turning up the chance to advertise their link with the Beatles, with hotels such as the Hard Days Night or Eleanor Rigby. We went to a cafe on Mathew Street for breakfast which ostensibly had nothing to do with the Beatles, and yet the walls were covered with photos of the Fab 4, in case we were in any doubt about where we were. I chose to stay with the group for the morning, before heading off on my own, which turned out to be a great plan as I got to visit the Anglican Cathedral. I hadn't heard anything about the Cathedral before the trip, so I probably wouldn't have gone there if it weren't for the recommendation, and it was well worth it.
The cathedral is the fifth-largest in the world, and the longest, so in other words it was huge. I certainly have never been in a cathedral anywhere near as big. We were there was at least a good half hour just wandering through the whole building. At the west doors was a large floor space with surrounding very impressive stained glass windows and a Tracey Emin art installation, which seemed somewhat out of place in a cathedral. We walked more or less the length of the cathedral, up to the main altar and into side galleries which included various other art pieces, and details on the construction of the building which took a good 74 years. It would have been great to also explore the bell tower, arguably one of the largest in the world, but unfortunately we didn't have time. I was definitely glad to have seen the cathedral though, I doubt I will get a chance to see another cathedral which is comparable.
From there I separated from the tour group with a couple of international students, to head to my old house via some Beatles landmarks. It took us at least an hour to walk there, but it was actually a good chance to explore the suburbs. Living on a University Campus, most of our time outside of the campus is spent in major city centres, so it was nice to see an English city outside of the tourist hotspots. There were a few of these amazing old red brick houses on our route, with overgrown hedges and black steel bar fences looking like something out of American Horror Story. Also luckily our route took us pretty much in a straight direction, meaning it was difficult for me to lead us astray (as is usually wont to happen). I still nearly managed it, when I got confused between the misleading similar Greenbank Drive, Gorsebank Rd and Greenbank Rd. I mean, who is naming these streets, honestly. Eventually we made it to Penny Lane, made obvious by the massive crowd and hard-to-miss Magical Mystery Tour Bus. It must be a pain for local drivers to have these tours coming past, as the road is inevitably blocked up with people taking advantage of the photo opportunity. Once the tour had moved on we took our chance, and then walked along Penny Lane, which turned out to be a very long road.
Eventually we made it to the real destination, No 7 Centreville Rd, AKA my old home. The street did look familiar from the old family photos, although to be fair, English streets are all very similar. It was pretty cool to see the house at an age when I am likely to remember this visit properly, and to visit the area where little me spent a whole year, so I was quite excited.
Having exhausted ourselves from the long walk we opted to take a bus back into the centre city. We wandered around Albert Dock, and then decided to visit the two best-known museums, the Maritime and International Slavery Museums. We had under two hours before being picked up so it was very convenient that the two were located in the same building. The most prominent exhibition in the Maritime Museum was probably that on maritime disasters involving the Liverpool docks, in particular the Titanic. There was also a lot about both world wars, and the navy in general, and a exhibiton on immigration and customs. On the top level was the Slavery museum, which detailed both the introduction and abolition of slavery in Europe, and the after-affects on black culture particularly in America and Britain. It was unfortunate that we had so little time, as both museums were really interesting and well set up. I could have stayed and seen much more in the museums with a couple more hours. This goes for the city as a whole as well. After the Slavery Museum we had to head straight to the busstop and back to Nottingham. I could easily have stayed another day and had much more to see. Even though I try to avoid looking too much like a tourist I would have loved a whole day just to explore the Beatles side of Liverpool, and then another day to see all the museums. I never get tired of a good museum, and Liverpool seems to have an abundance of them. The city centre also had a very cool vibe, with lots of little cafes and niche shops which would be worth exploring. I can only hope that I get another chance to go back in a few years time.
Byyyeeeee!
One of the best parts of being in Nottingham has to be the location. Nottingham is in the Midlands, so more or less in the middle of England which means that most towns are pretty easy to visit just for a daytrip. And also conveniently there are lots and lots of University-run groups organising said daytrips meaning low costs and an enjoyable lack of self-responsibility. Instead of having to decide which towns to visit, and when, I just wait until an event pops up on Facebook, and off I go. This means in the past couple of weekends I got to visit a couple of towns which hadn't really been on my radar of must-see places, but which were definitely worth the trip.
First up, Oxford. Oxford is probably most well known for the university, but given that New Zealand universities aren't exactly major tourist attractions it hadn't really struck me as a visiting destination. Once I heard that Oxford was the home of Alice and Wonderland, and that parts of Harry Potter were filmed at one of the colleges I was sold. It was also interesting to see given that I had recently visited Cambridge, home to the UK's other most famous university, offering a good comparison. Oxford felt very much like a tourist destination, which an abundance of shops selling Oxford sweaters and Union Jack tshirts, and no shortage of (very pricey) attractions to visit. Personally I feel like I wouldn't enjoy studying a town which was always packed with visitors and tourist busses, but I guess that's the price you pay to attend a presitigous and famous university.
Upon arriving in Oxford we decided to explore some of the town before seeing one of the university's famous colleges. We saw some famous buildings, including the Radcliffe Camera and Bodilean Library, which were both very impressive. I would have loved to explore the library inside, but unfortunately you had to accompany a tour which of course meant spending far too much money. Instead we headed to the Ashmolean Museum, a museum of art and archeaology. It was a somewhat strange museum because it had a lot of displays, but many of them were replicas and casts of famous archealogical finds, so one could never be quite sure without reading up close whether something was genuine or just a copy. Still, it was a good way to spend the morning as we were waiting for the chance to visit Christ Church (one of Oxford's colleges), which wasn't open until the afternoon.
Christ Church was home to the Lewis Carroll and, more importantly, its dining hall was used for filming in the first Harry Potter film. This was apparently a very big draw card as we spent a good 5-10 minutes just walking slowly in a queue from one end of the hall to the other. Apart from the dining hall we also got to see some of the grounds (although most was closed to visitors), and the chapel, which actually functions as the cathedral for the diocese of Oxford. Needless to say I was pretty impressed by the college, which was a far cry from the accommodation back home. After our visit we headed across to the road to the "Alice Shop", apparently the actual shop upon which Lewis Carroll based the Old Sheep Shop in Through the Looking Glass. It was a tiny shop filled with so much Alice in Wonderland memorabilia. I wanted to buy the whole shop basically, especially the tea sets. By this time we were exhausted, but still had a couple of hours before our coach pick-up, so we checked out the outside of the remains of Oxford Castle, and then headed to a pub for traditional fish and chips and a drink to round off a long day.
The following weekend I took a trip to another very popular destination, the seaside town of Whitby. As anyone from Samuel Marsden would know, I found this particularly funny because our high school bought and integrated an independent school from the suburb of Whitby in Wellington, so I spent the whole trip making Marsden Whitby jokes which absolutely no one understand. Aside from that, I actually really loved the town and the seaside ambience.
We first walked up to Whitby Abbey (which can be seen up on the hill in the photo). We had a great view of the town from the top of the hill. We took a tour of the Abbey remains, which included an audio tour. I've never actually used an audio tour before, and it was actually quite cool, because you could just wander around the abbey exploring while taking in information, rather than just reading a sign. It was also quite cheesey because the tour seemed really geared towards children, so there were lots of really bad reenactments from "historical figures", but this just ended up being pretty funny. They'd also chosen a really weird focus to capture the children's attention, in the form of executions. There were all these cardboard cutout figures of cartoons being executed around the abbey remains, and we were even informed that we could meet the "executioner" on our tour. Somehow this seemed very odd against the backdrop of this historic religious building. In any case, the remains themselves were magnificent, and it was only a shame that we couldn't have seen the whole abbey when it was in its full glory.
The only downside to being at the top of the hill was the wind which was especially blustery and cold, so we didn't stick around for too long. We did explore the Church of St Mary and neighbouring graveyard which were also at the top of the hill, before heading back down to the town. The town itself was actually a lot more bustling than I expected, with a lot of shops for everything from fancy plates to jewellry to sweaters. And there was a neverending abundance of ice cream and sweet shops. I was surprised by how many people were actually eating ice cream, given that it was very cold and very windy and not at all cold food weather, but I suppose it was appropriate for the location. We opted instead to get fish and chips from the Magpie Cafe (recommended to us by basically everyone). The advice was good, and we enjoyed some delicious fish and chips while sitting on the pier. I do have to say that the chips in England are always much soggier than NZ, which is a let down, but the fish was great, and clearly fresh. I also very much approve of the addition of vinegar. In order to work off the very filling fish and chips we walked up another hill which had a statue of Captain Cook, and looked out across the town from the opposite side to the abbey.
On our walk back towards the coach stop we thought we would check out one of the "family amusement centres". Basically a whole section of the street leading down to the pier was filled with those arcades with different games like Timezone in Wellington, all with lots of flashing lights and fun for all the family advertised. It actually turned out to be super creepy, with all these really stupid penny games where you just keep sticking pennies into slots with the eventual (but unlikely) hope that you will win a tacky prize. And it was all lone adults, who were clearly there for the gambling rather than the family fun. 0/10 would not recommend for future visitors.
In any case, I definitely enjoyed everything else about Whitby. It really felt like the kind of place that would be nice for a whole weekend getaway, especially in the summer when you could really enjoy the actual beach aspect. I still have a few day trips planned for the next couple of weeks, so I will try to keep this updated.
Byeeeeee!
