“Farewell to Princes’ landing stage, River Mersey fare thee well
I am bound for California, a place I know right well”
Yes, tomorrow we will be leaving Liverpool after 12 days in Salthouse Dock with the luxury of mains electricity, not for California of course, but what have we done since our last report?
As mentioned last time we celebrated our wedding anniversary last week and we discovered Christakis Greek Taverna tucked away in a side street about 10 minutes walk away where we enjoyed a great celebratory meal with very ‘healthy’ portions. A special mention must go to their briam (roasted vegetables) which far surpassed our own attempts.
We took a Ferry cross the Mersey with a river explorer ticket which allows you to hop on and off at all the stops and included free entry to the U-Boat exhibition at Birkenhead’s Woodside Ferry Terminal. The submarine has been cut into four sections with glass viewing windows which allows you to see much more of the interior.
The obligatory open-topped sightseeing bus tour was undertaken which is a great way to visit all the city landmarks, again a hop-on hop-off ticket valid for 24 hours. We visited the stunning Metropolitan Cathedral (Paddy’s Wigwam as it’s known to Liverpudlians), Chinatown and Mathew Street, home of the Cavern Club and mourned the loss of ‘Our Cilla’ with the locals.
There always seems to be something going on around us in Salthouse Dock, apart from the comings and goings of narrowboats there have been swimmers, swan shaped pedalos (which some hirers seemed to struggle to control) , rowers, water-busses, paddle-boarders and some guys trying to push a floating pontoon with a winch on it against the wind with a little inflatable.
We are right next to Albert Dock so visited there several times including the Maritime Museum and the nearby Liverpool Museum. One afternoon were surprised to see shoals (?) of jellyfish next to our boat one afternoon, our son had mentioned them but I thought he might have been winding us up! There’s lots to see in the city including the World Museum, haven’t we been culture vultures!
We have also had fellow bloggers the Halfies moored next to us for a few days and took an evening stroll with them to see the Black Watch cruise ship leaving port followed by a pint or two at the Baltic Fleet pub which has it’s own micro brewery, I sampled their 70/- ale while Halfie enjoyed their Stout to the accompaniment of live music in the other bar.
The pub also claims to be the home of ‘Scouse’ Liverpool’s famous dish, they tell us “Lapskaus is a Norwegian dish, a hot stew with carrots, mutton, pork sausage or beef” brought to our shores by Norwegian sailors.
Of course over the years ‘Scouse’ has also come to mean the local dialect and the local people are proud to call themselves ‘Scousers’. I’ve always had a soft spot for the accent ever since I was a teenager; a Scouse lass told me I was ‘gear’ for helping her when her car had broken down. [“Gear?” she asked. “Fab,” Ringo replied. “You know—really great.”]
On Sunday we visited the Anglican Cathedral and stayed for their Zone2 Service which is informal cafe style worship.
We have had more visitors, this time a friend of Joy’s whom she has known since they went to dancing school together many moons ago.
Anne and her partner Graham joined us for lunch on the boat and then we took a stroll across to The Tate. Anne is a professional artist and you can see some of her work on her website.
This exhibit connecting us back Dursley, where we lived for many years, amused me. It was inspired by the Dursley-Pedersen bicycle, shades of The Goodies Trandem!