Last Day in Liverpool - Part I

Our last morning in Liverpool, we had Laurel and Hardy with us at breakfast (as in, a fat guy and a skinny guy in costume doing the act). I'm sorry not to have taken their picture, as usual I didn't have my camera to hand. I’ve no idea what that was all about, but having lived in Britain for over a decade now, very little about people’s dress and behaviour really surprises me much anymore. That sounds rather blasé, but in fact it is one of the things I like best about living here -- the diversity (a word beloved by HR departments everywhere). Only the previous day I spotted a couple of young men exiting a department store dressed as super heroes, you know, with tights and capes and such, but I didn’t do them the honour of taking their picture. I suspected it had to do with collecting money for charity and didn’t want to attract their attention. It occurs to me to mention here that North Shields claims Stan Laurel as a native son. Reading up on this I can see I need to go take some photos for you...

Anyhow, on this our last day in Liverpool, it turned out that Bill wanted to see much of what I had already covered and so we walked Hope Street starting at the Metropolitan end, where Bill wanted to check out the modern Catholic church

then wandered down past Chinatown

to Albert Dock,

where we spent most of the day. After that we walked past the Pierhead,

past the Town Hall, which I had previously overlooked (and also needs cleaned)

up to the Walker Museum where we spent an hour or so until it was time to get back to the car and head for Manchester to have dinner and stay the night at Helen’s house.

The main thing at Albert Dock I wanted to see was the International Slavery Museum. I don’t know what I expected, really, maybe sad stories and horrible pictures. I was interested mainly because I understood Liverpool had strong links with slavery. I read so much there that grabbed me that I've decided to make it a separate post. So you'll just have to contain your curiosity until tomorrow...