Enjoying retirement
In The Red Rose County
We were looking forward to getting to know the city even better. The view from the hotel window was fine...............you can just see the Queen Elizabeth cruise ship in port and the Three Graces. The room itself was tired and shabby as so many chain hotels. But cheap. The staff by the way were terrific. The first day we had a good wander around seeing some marvellous buildings and a wonderful juxtaposition of old and new. Pity I deleted the 140 photos taken today to allow my phone to function again. (I thought they had already uploaded to Amazon....only about half a dozen had). We had to see the Phil (start of a few pub crawls in the 60's). On this occasion we didn't go inside. And we headed for......... .........the Georgian Quarter which was pretty well unbelievable - really extensive and full of charm. One of the streets was Rodney Street where I had attended a party in the 60's at which Roger McGough wrote a short poem addressed to my accompaniment for the night. I reminded him of this when he came to speak as a visiting author. He didn't remember. Mind you why would he (part of the group The Scaffold ('Lily The Pink' etc etc) along with Paul McCartney's brother) remember anything of the 60's?! Marvelling at the overwhelming number of Georgian houses, we found ourselves on Hope Street and decided this time to see the Catholic cathedral or Paddy's Wigwam as the locals call it (the monster CoE cathedral is at the other end of Hope Street). Although basically a concrete shell, the nearer you got the more impressed you became. And inside was spectacular enough, whether in terms of the building itself..... the stations of the cross....... the tapestry (this one 6 years in the making)....... or even the concrete detailing outside which was interesting. The only thing that let the cathedral down was the surrounds....there was a bit of an attempt at a monastery garden, but hey. That day we did more than 18,000 steps which in an urban environment is a lot. The next day, a Tuesday, the museums were open. So we strolled through the Albert Dock (where our hotel was situated.....one of its plus points). Sympathetic re-use of building everywhere, including the Pump House here (now a pub)....... and we went first to the Tate (part of the Albert Dock fabric). Basically we were totally unimpressed. Pretentiousness and childish simplicity pretending to sophistication is not my cup of tea. Good job there was just the odd thing to keep us interested...here a Lichenstein with, in the background, some art featuring Chillon Castle on Lake Geneva which brought back pleasant memories. Here a Picasso....... Very little to keep us, so outside we went.........past the Harbourmaster's house, and along the quay............. to the Museum of Liverpool a striking, dazzling white, futuristic building..... which was absolutely crammed with interest inside, and a model for all other museums.... full of audio, film, artefacts, interactive bits and pieces, and very very instructive on the history and culture of this great city....... Here was The Lion (aka 'The Titchfield Thunderbolt, ex Mersey Docks) a very early locomotive which was actually working under its own steam until the early 1990's but has now become a prize exhibit here as too much deterioration of original parts would otherwise have resulted... Poor Liverpool MP William Huskisson the first ever railway casualty featured.... and, having glimpsed a carriage from the well-known Overhead Railway... we moved to the next floor .where we learned all about it. What a wonder of its day and I suppose how Liverpool wished it had it now (demolished despite public protests in the fifties). We only saw a fraction of what the Museum had to offer, and could have spent a day there, but onwards and upwards......past more magnificent buildings in a host of classic and ecletic styles.... actually downwards as it happened - to St James Station which (an unremarkable plaque I could hardly see informed us) was the oldest deep-cutting underground station in the world. Quite something. The train took us to Port Sunlight, a beautiful model village built for the workers at the nearby Lever Brothers factory, and comparable to, but even more impressive than, Saltaire. The range of Edwardian styles was memorable, as was its setting...... ..................here the park we walked through just across the road from the station.... we came eventually to the astonishing war memorial, built by two of Lord Lever's own employees, which commemorates the 503 of his employees that died and the 4000 who served. Pevsner considered it very moving whilst avoiding sentimentality. the memorial stood at the centre point of four wonderful avenues, here replete with roses.. and at the end of one of them our destination - The Lady Lever art gallery. We had read good things about the gallery, but we weren't prepared for the sheer quantity and supreme quality of what lay inside. Virtually every piece of art was to be admired and savoured Here even Millais' Forever Blowing Bubbles, although sickly sentimental, was of interest because of the fascinating history behind Lever's use of it in advertising..... I particularly liked the Sculpture Hall which contained top-drawer seventeenth and eighteenth century copies as well as original Greek and Roman pieces. What a wonderful place Port Sunlight and the Lady Lever Art Gallery was. A real eye-opener. the best museum/art gallery outside of the V&A I should say. Having rested a while at our hotel (after another 16,000 steps) we ventured out into the soft romantic evening sun, which really made the buildings glow, looking for sustenance. We were heading to the far end of the Quay just over a mile away, to a fish restaurant. a purely sculptural fire escape (one hopes!)..... The Queen Elizabeth which we had seen yesterday at close quarters when we did the Mersey ferry cruise (pics deleted) had been replaced already by the huge cruise ship 'Virtuosa' which to our astonishment was manouvering out despite the low tide.... There were large crowds on shore and on deck, and music playing. I was filled with nostalgia for the cruises I had been on on the Reina Del Mar, starting sometimes from Liverpool. But this, the Virtuosa, was 181,000 tons and the Reina Del Mar was 21,000 tons. One small swimming pool as opposed to 5 large ones. Nevertheless we had a military band to play us off, and our ship was much prettier. Here you are - the beautiful and classic Reina Del Mar.......... We hadn't booked at 'The Italian Club Fish' but the staff were charming and soon had us seated at a 'no-show' table. Fantastic service and food. On the way back to our hotel we passed the Isle of Man ferry terminal. We must go some time. We passed The Beatles too. Next day we walked up through Liverpool One to the bus station where we caught a bus, with a friendly and chatty driver, to somewhere near (well quite far from actually) Sudley House. From our put-down stop the walk through Aigburth lanes and roads was pleasant if tiring.... Bought by a ship-owner George Holt in Victorian times, he transformed it with works of art by the best artists of the time. It now represents the only surviving intact collecion of art owned by a merchant family with virtually everything still in its original location..... What a 'modern' painting this is...... and how beautifully painted this scene by a female artist. There are works here by her brother, but not as good! Rosa Bonheur was an unusual character, she had short hair, smoked and wore maculine clothing. She also had a small menagerie, visited slaughterhouses and dissected animals. Quite the feminisit. The painting features in an LGBT+ trail apparently. We then walked to Sefton Park where we had intended to visit the splendid Palm House. However, having found an ice-cream cafe we sat by the lake and then caught the bus back. We lunched at Bacaro (we ate twice there), and very good it is too. The fennel jam with the frito misto is just amazing. You could be in Lisbon or Barcelona quite easily. In the afternoon we were to go 'over the water'.........to of all places Birkenhead. I had a friend at college who came from Birkenhead, and no-one ever asked him about it (as we all thought we knew it was a dump, and didn't want to embarrass him - that's how thoughtful we were). What an eye-opener again. Hamilton Square, just outside the bus station, is huge, pure Georgian with magnificent architecture and a rather nice garden in the middle. It has the most Grade 1 listed buildings together of anywhere outside London. And designed by the architect who laid out Edinburgh New Town. Stupendous. And the average price of property sold in the Square over the last year (mainly 1 and 2 bed flats) was just over £80k. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Edinburgh! Having done just over 15,000 steps so far we were a little reluctant to walk to Birkenhead Park but extremely glad we did so. It is a huge public park, designed by Joseph Paxton, and in fact the very first publicly funded civic park in the world. As such it influenced the design of Central Park in New York and the afore-mentioned Sefton Park, neither quite matching it in my view . The large lake was full of ducks... and rather large carp........ and the boathouse had a lovely fishy floor What a magical surprise, and when we caught the bus outside the park the bus stop adjoined a rather tasty looking British East India Company building. Beauty and splendour wherever you looked. Liverpool we salute you.
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