As mentioned in the previous post, we have made few trips around Manchester in past few days. To be more precise, we have visited four cities in four days: Liverpool, Sheffield, Chester and Leeds. Here are my impressions.

Liverpool

Beatles. And port. And Beatles. And ships, docks and warehouses. And of course John, Paul, George and Ringo! Of course Beatles are everywhere. You can get Beatles souvenirs in every shop, and there are several museums showing artifacts and things.

We arrived at the (famous?) train station on Lime Street. It takes less then an hour from Manchester. The city appears bigger than Mcr, and there are more of these suburb unified houses. (It's like copypasted city really, and I immediately started wondering. Many people say that the communist housing projects with panel houses etc. are horrible, with no schools, no shops etc., but this English suburb style seems to be exactly the same thing. The panel houses are higher (sometimes as many as 20 floors), and they are not made of bricks, but apart from these 'cosmetic' differences, it seems exactly the same. The houses in the suburbs (and not just Liverpool suburbs! We have this in Mcr as well) are all exactly the same, with nothing between them, just the same streets all over and over again. I don't really see how this is any better.

Anyway, back to Liverpool-specific stuff. We went to see the docks, and that is really nice. There is a promenade along the river. There is the river! And there are ancient docks, with old ships there. And warehouses. And more docks. And some modern ships (some of them go to Isle of Man, and some to Ireland).  The river is wider than any other river I have ever seen (but it's true that I have never seen delta of Danube, or Amazon...). And there are tides, because it's very close to the sea. The river went 5m lower during low tide (afternoon) than during high tide (morning). Which was a surprise for us, because we are from an inland country.

There is also a huge cathedral in Liverpool. From the outside, it looks like some communist building because it's all squares and it's so huge it looks really out of proportion. Exactly as the spectacular communist show-off buildings! (It reminds me of Hotel International in Prague - just compare the pictures! Cathedral v the hotel.) It would be enough to put a red star on the top of the building, and here we go, Moscow architecture...

But to be not that harsh: inside, the cathedral is beautiful. It's really impressive, the space, the stained glass, the side chapels, the organ (which makes sounds so deep that it hurts), and all the details, everything is the finest stuff. You can tell that these people were incredibly rich, and willing to invest the money into the Lord's house.

In Liverpool, the cathedral is not the only huge building. Some of them look like a New York architecture (roughly the same style as Empire State Building but a bit lower). It's just that the whole city is like that: it's spectacular. After all, they say that some 9 million people emigrated through Liverpool to the US in the old days, and the port and docks were there long before that. All the people, merchants, ships etc. must have left so much money there!

The city is rich even these days. There are fancy shops, art galleries, modern office buildings, etc. Money everywhere! And it is indeed very nice to see.

Sheffield

The city of stainless steel (previously), and of the Sheffield Hallam University (today). We went there between Christmas and New Year, and maybe that's why the city looked a bit boring... because it was almost empty!

There are two cathedrals in Sheffield, one of them (the smaller one) is catholic, the other one (the bigger one) is Anglican. There are some quite interesting steel statues in the Anglican cathedral, and the inner space is very nice.

There is also very good industry museum, where you can have a look on River Don Engine (which is huge!) and on other engineering stuff. They show you how the steel is made, and what the history of the steel industry was. There is also awesome kid's exhibition where you can go through the steel process yourself (pretending that you are molten steel, and get pressed, stamped etc.). If you ever go to Sheffield, don't forget to visit Kelham Island and the museum. (Bonus: there is a museum café where you can have quite impressive sandwiches!)

Chester

Incredibly photogenic, painfully cute, kitsch city. Everyone has to go to Chester and see it, because Chester is beautiful.

It doesn't seem to be at the first sight. The train station is a bit 'boring', just an ordinary station which is not bad, but it't not the most beautiful train station in the world, and you have to walk ca 1 km to the city centre. However, once you arrive there, you have to be impressed!

There was a Roman fortress of Deva in the old ages, and the old Roman fortification is still there. And you can climb up the wall and walk it! It's ca 3 km long, and it's a very nice walk around the city, with some medieval things, and a view of the castle. (That is funny, because 'Chester' means castle, so Chester Castle is literally Castle Castle. Lol!) The fortification goes past the river Dee, and a canal, which is itself quite romantic.

In the city centre, there are many cute white and black houses, some of them 4 floors high. In the city centre, there are many shops, and in the houses, there's also a shopping gallery which you can enter via stairs and walk as well, It's incredibly, disgustingly beautiful!

In the Roman times, Chester / Deva used to be a big sea port, and later it was a market town, and obviously a busy and important one. Which means that everything is sophisticated, decorated, and with a lot of attention to details.

Apart from shopping and building-gazing, there is again a cathedral (with fine stained glass windows (I especially liked the modern ones, e.g. this one), and a cloister, and an old church court equipment). And if you ever come to Chester, visit the Burger Shed 41, Marvellous burgers, and superb doughnuts and ice cream as a dessert. You have to wait to be seated, but it is well worth the struggle!

Chester is not at all far from Wales. Meaning that the buses sometimes end in Wales, and there are Welsh names of places written on these buses. It looks very funny; if you have never seen or heard Welsh, try the BBC Cymru. For example, this and this should be the same article in Welsh and in English, respectively.)

Leeds

Leeds is supposed to be the shopping centre of England (maybe the whole Great Britain), but we were less then impressed.

There is a cathedral which is closed, and some churches which are also closed. There is a canal which is mostly inaccessible because it's all private property. There are many shops, but right now they only sell stuff that they could not sell during Christmas (and we could not come across anything decent in our size). And there is a beautiful market place, which is very art nouveau, but which is full of cheap clothes and cheap home equipment.

The only positive thing is that there are two comics shops.

Summary

We will visit Liverpool and Chester again, and whenever someone visits us, we will take them there. and show them all the stuff.
We will probably visit Sheffield or Leeds only if there is something really interesting - exhibition, theatre, concert. And I guess that we will leave shortly after the event ends.

Edit: stinking, lousy Google has crashed in the middle of updating the blog, and the previous post (the one referred to in the current post) just disappeared. It contained few funny little stories about train travelling in the UK, and some interesting things about buying knives (and having to show your ID to buy them) and everyday things like that. Well, it's gone. I am not going to write it again. :( Hi ho.