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Glasgow to the Cotswolds in 10 days – The North

Posted by: on Jul 24, 2008 | No Comments

Rumour has it that things are grim up north. Grey weather, rough people, housing estates as far as the eye can see. Well, actually that wasn’t quite the case but it was good to go in with low expectations and then be suitably impressed!

Driving from Edinburgh in our hired VW Passat we couldn’t really tell what the speed limit was. We assumed it couldn’t be more than 70 miles but people were speeding past us at any opportunity. Lesson 1: The UK speed limit is 70 miles but people like to go faster than that.

There’s some beautiful countryside on the road from Edinburgh south west to the Lake District. We met a friend of Peter’s for a Sunday pub lunch in Penrith (mm, chocolate bread and butter pudding) and then continued our journey south.

First stop was Manchester, a sparkling rejuvenated city with a massive mall, a curry mile, a little China town and a nice selection of hipster shops in the Northern Quarter. I can highly recommend staying in the Hilton Chambers around that part of town.

Manchester and Liverpool are both pretty big cities so I only recently realised they’re onlyl 45 minutes apart. So a daytrip to the Liverpool TATE was next on the agenda. We set off early to stop by Crosby Beach, north of Liverpool, to see a massive year long installation by Antony Gormley. Somehow we navigated close enough to the beach to see a brown tourist street sign telling us to go left. Scored! But that was the only sign and there was still a lot of coast to investigate. We decide to wander around from the second car park we pull into. There’s an old lady walking her dogs in the semi-rain and full-wind who I ask for directions. “If I had 20p for every person who asks me that! Keep walking that way and you can’t miss them. They’re staring all the way to New York.”

So we walked on and she was right, we couldn’t have missed them once we got to the right place. I should’ve given her 20p. If you’re ever in the area do drop by because it’s a mighty impressive installation. One hundred life-sized cast iron figures staring out to sea from a semi-industrial piece of coastline. Check out other peoples’ pictures to see for yourself.

The Liverpool TATE is also great. We went to see the temporary exhibition on Gustav Klimt but were most impressed at exhibitions from their collection, of which we only got through one floor.

We had a quick wander through the city centre and were reminded often enough that Liverpool was the home of the Beatles. No time for lingering because there was still Manchester to see more of, including Affleck’s Palace.

Sadly Affleck’s isn’t what it used to be. Or so I’m led to believe given it was my first visit. It’s a big old warehouse building on a corner that for years (since 1982 according to their website) has been a ecclectic and independent market. I think the story goes that the building was set for demolition but then ‘saved’ but a developer/businessman who now runs the market. There were a few more interesting stalls but most of it was aimed at the goth or clubber sub-cultures of the ’90s (or the kids of today just getting into those looks).

Our last city in the ‘up north tour of the UK’ was Leeds. After a few hours exploring the city we headed slightly out of the city to the headquarters of Norman Records. Norman are a mail order CD shop with an excellent weekly newsletter and a broad range of interesting music. Peter organised to check out their office and while he was there, also checked out their store of CDs. Richard, who works at Norman and also plays in a exellent band, put us up in his lovely Pudsey terrace (complete with cute garden and cat) but not until we’d had fantastic Indian at a place called Akbar’s in nearby Bradford. What’s not to love about 2 foot long naan that hangs from a cast-iron rod on your table? Mmm.

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