Our Liverpool City Break

Hi, welcome back.

So far we're having a great time here in Liverpool. The weather is being kind to us as well which is nice.

If you'd like to stay in the dock without bringing your own boat you could stay in one of these converted wide beams. There's the Titanic, which I personally think is in very poor taste as it's supposed to depict the liner sinking

or the Yellow Submarine. Prices from £199 a night

Personally I prefer our own accommodation, complete with morning visitor

Yesterday we visited the Maritime Museum

and took the Old Dock tour down into the world's first enclosed wet dock which has been excavated and preserved underneath the Liverpool 1 shopping & hotel complex. It was a fascinating tour which I'd recommend to anyone.

This is the side and floor of the dock. The dock walls were made from bricks which have been painstakingly cleaned, the floor is the red bedrock that Liverpool stands on. It all dates back to 1715 having been re-discovered during excavations in 2001 after being filled in and buried in 1826.

Liverpool 1 was built above it and you can see some of the concrete pilings that hold the buildings up above.

Today we went to the World Museum. It's only small and quite a few of the exhibitions were closed for maintenance which was a shame.

I know the collection and decoration of ivory should be banned, but I can appreciate why they did it when you see things as beautiful as this Burmese chair

It was so intricately carved and just stunning

One new external exhibit needs a bit of TLC

maybe it'll be nice next year?

Liverpool has some amazing architecture all around the city. This is St George's Hall

even the City Tower is spectacular

or how about a Lambanana?

This is the "Dazzled" pilot ship Edmund Gardner which is a permanent exhibit in the dry dock.

Dazzling was a technique used a lot during the First World War in an attempt to camouflage war ships to make them lesser targets for U-boats

This is one of the propellers from the Lusitania, the liner that was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat in 1915 and which was a catalyst in bringing the Americans into the war.

This is a statue of a dock horse

 Another horse sculpture, supposedly made from rope

We ended today's walkabout in a new type of coffee bar in Albert Dock. Ziferblat is the latest craze especially with students. All food and drink is free, you just pay for the time you spend in there at 5p per minute.

 

 

There's tea, coffee, hot chocolate and an assortment of fruit juices. Cereals, fruit and toast for an all day breakfast

and an assortment of cakes and fruit.

We stayed half an hour but you could easily stay much longer as there are lots of comfy sofas plus board games, a piano and free wi-fi to tempt you to linger longer.......  I can definitely see the attraction and the place was quite busy whereas the Costa Coffee shop further up the street was practically empty.

We had a surprise yesterday when our old boat Two Hoots arrived in the dock.

It's still owned by Phil and Carol who bought it off us 7 years ago, so that makes 3 Crown Narrowboats here.....a good excuse to go to the pub for an owner's meeting don't you think?

See you soon