Day 8 Liverpool- Pouring with rain

Woken this morning at 5:30 by my personal alarm clock, who then went back to sleep. Sarah drove Tim to work early and I walked the children to school. Slight drizzle this morning, so I wore my boots. It was also cold, so puffer jacket on too. When Sarah returned we drove to Liverpool. Unfortunately I had changed out of my boots and put on my runners.

We parked at Liverpool One and began our walk through the city. The drizzle was light. We stopped to get a new SIM card for my phone, which cost £20 for the 30 days. After this we stopped for a cuppa then crossed over to St Luke’s church – the shell of the original gothic church. It was completed in 1831, but damaged with an incendiary bomb in 1941. There was an amazing sculpture in the garden of a WW! German and British soldier playing soccer.

From here we walked up to the Catholic Christ the King Cathedral- an amazing building. I particularly loved the Stations of the Cross by Sean Rice, the stain glass windows, the wall hangings and the incredible huge Pentecost mosaic. It is a lovely church with the main altar in the centre and capable of holding 2000. Coming out of the church the rain had arrived in earnest and it was umbrella time and our feet were completely wet.

We walked up Hope Street towards the Liverpool (Anglican) Cathedral- the largest one in the UK and the fifth largest in the world. 188 m long and the tower is 100 m high. It was begun in 1901 and completed in 1978. While it has the most beautiful stain glass windows and is a lovely gothic design I couldn’t quite understand their philosophy of building an “old’ church? My favourite chapel was the Lady Chapel, which was very pretty and slightly more peaceful than the main church.

On the way to the cathedral we stopped at the Philharmonic Dining Room.  This hotel has a lovely interior and is worth a look.

We stopped for lunch at Pret- a – Manger for some delicious, but extremely hot soup, then we walked out into the heavy rain to the Dockland area. The Mersey River is 1.1 km wide at Albert Dock to Birkenhead. Terrible weather for any photos down there. It was so wet, but we did see several statues celebrating the port of Liverpool and all the immigrants that came/ left from here.

We stopped to take photos of the three really impressive buildings by the river- the Royal Liver building, the Cunard building and the Port of Liverpool building. The statues of the Beatles were just in front. We walked further along the wharf to look at the memorial commemorating all the engine workers on board the Titanic who kept on working while the ship went down.

We made our way back to the car park, paid £8 for our parking and then drove past the Museum, Library and other large impressive buildings before exiting the city via the Birkenhead tunnel. It was incredibly wet now. As soon as we got home it was wet socks and shoes off. Not much time before we had to pick up Lachie. Afternoon tea and then time to pick up Amelia.

Sarah prepared a delicious salmon and vegetables. Tim got a lift home, dinner, bath time, and time for bed for the children.