We’ve covered a substantial amount of ground since Lands End. Heading northward through mid England we’ve stumbled across many very interesting places between the “big-name” tourist destinations. Unfortunately trying to describe all these great “little” finds would require blogging in the extreme so you’ll just have to wait until we get home and on request (or not), we’ll yak “on-and-on” about them for as long as you can stand it. Having said all that, there is one place that does deserve a special mention. Ironbridge Gorge is where the Industrial Revolution was kick started and the impressive 1779 Iron bridge spanning the gorge was its catalyst. Engineers from around the world came to marvel at this wonderful new structure and then went home with new ideas on how to create things with this brand-new super material. Interestingly, 237 years ago they were still trying to figure out how to work with steel and cast iron so they opted to build this bridge using popular woodworking joinery methods and under closer examination you’ll see common techniques such as dovetail and pinned mortise & tenon joints throughout. As for other major tourist centres, we’ve done our best to touch base with as many as possible including Bath, Bristol, Wells, Stratford-upon-Avon, Chester, Manchester, Liverpool and York and I think we did a fairly good job of covering the highlights of each. I will admit however that a big highlight for us was our Beatles “mania day” in Liverpool where we visited the Cavern Club, took a National Trust special tour of Paul and John’s childhood homes, waved hello to Strawberry Fields and walked the circle at Penny Lane, what a fun day. By-the-way, the downtown waterfront area of Liverpool deserves a big shout-out as a great place to wander, shop or just hang-out.
Unfortunately we don’t have the time to cover everything so as we move about we’re sometimes forced to make difficult decisions as to what we see and what we add to our wish list. On top of that wish list will be Cambridge, Norwich and Nottingham. Scotland is now close at hand and we’re looking forward to eating Haggis to the sweet and mellow sound of the bag pipes. Wish you could join us!