We had a long chat to the lady who has owned our B&B before we checked out. She had loved owning and running the place for the last 8 years but ill health has meant she needs to cut back on the 24/7 routine of running a B & B . We also got the 8 pression that her husband doesn’t help much, he was the one that was in charge of bookings and should have made sure that everyone was notified about their closure! 😂 Anyway, she gave us a reduced rate because we didn’t get breakfast and set us on our way with a hug, lovely person!
Our first stop for the day was the small city of Chester, just across the border in England. Chester is another of those ancient medieaval towns with a huge cathedral and town walls . Chester also has a lovely central area with many really stunning Tudor buildings. When we arrive we first grabbed a light breakfast in the New Market .
Then we went for a walk around part of the town walls past King Charles tower, he stood on the tower in 1646 watching his troops being defeated on Rowton Moor during the Civil War. We then continues on behind the Chester Cathedral until we reached East Gate, where we returned down the stairs to the street. The magnificent clock mounted above the gate was installed to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee.
We spent some time wandering around the centre streets of Chester and admiring the beautiful buildings. The streets meet up at Chester High Cross, and ancient stone cross that dates back to 1496. In this central area you can see steps leading up from the street to galleries called “the Rows” that run along the tops of the shops. They are ancient, first recorded after a fire damaged Chester in 1278. It’s thought that as the bedrock under the centre of town made it impossible to dig basements, the shopkeepers built up instead.
We then drove on to spend some time at a huge outlet center a little North of Chester. We always go outlet shopping when we visit the USA and thought we’d take in the British version, but despite the place being huge we didn’t find anything to tempt us. After a quick lunch at Starbucks we headed in to Liverpool where we are spending the next two nights. The drive was smooth until we were near the exit of the tunnel that runs under the Mersey river. Then we ground to a halt and crawled the short distance to the hotel. We found out later (when we heard the dance beat coming from a huge stage at the rivers edge) that there is a big music event on the waterfront this weekend. Whole areas and streets are blocked off. Anyway we were glad to get to the hotel and interested in the decor behind the bed. It’s was a precursor to what we’d find in Liverpool. As the birthplace of the Beatles, this city is music central .
Weeks ago I’d booked us tickets to see the resident Beatles tribute band perform at the Cavern Club , the little underground venue in Liverpool where they got started on their road into music fame. The “Cavern Club Beatles” tribute band perform every Saturday night and the show gets great reviews. We walked up around 6 pm to find somewhere for dinner and were gobsmacked at the crowds in the Cavern Club area on Matthew St. There are several clubs and pubs lining the street and they were all pumping out their own live music. The street was packed! We eventually found a pub nearby where the speciality was Bao Buns and Rice Bowls. We enhjoyed dinner watching the crowds heave below. Then we walked around the block to the back entrance of the Cavern Club to join the line for the concert. The club filled quickly, it’s pretty small inside and there is only limited seating. We were lucky to grab a reasonably good spot and settled in to enjoy the evening. There was a solo acoustic support act who turned out to be excellent and when they Beatles came on they were fantastic. They wore 4 different costumes throughout the night, reflecting the change in the Beatles music style and they sounded so authentic. We had a great night!
