Arrived at the Marriott last night and Daniel was there waiting. I checked us in, and after a bite to eat, checked out the hot spa and pool and went for a dip. It was lovely! Most welcome after the exertions of the previous day. Had an early night, since there was nothing to blog because I’d done nothing all day except blog for the previous day! They had no free wifi at all (like the Shelborne), so I could do no planning there, really.
We picked up the rental car at 10. The taxi dropped me off at Terminal 2, but of course the Sixt counter there was closed. So we had to walk a couple of kilometers along the skywalk to Terminal 1 to pick up the car. Of course it was bucketing down rain when we got the car, but getting on the right road to Lancaster was no problem at all after getting good advice from the dude at car rental place. Unfortunately, there’s no GPS in the car, and the map they gave me is pretty basic. But still, I managed to navigate the right way and Daniel did a good job driving, with minor direction (read yelp of horror) from me as to what side of the road he should be driving on….
When I saw the signs for Southport, I had to divert, so I could see what Southport looks like here in England. It’s a bit like Rainbow Beach in that there’s sand and cars on the beach, other than that it’s more like the north sea off Germany: brown, flat and windy as hell:
My luck with the weather really held out – it started clearing up before we stopped to check out Southport! We had lunch at the pub here: Sunday roast for 4.95 GBP. We had a choice of Turkey, Beef or Pork. It wasn’t masses of food, but not bad for lunch.
Next stop was Lytham. This was still on the coast and they had a nice windmill on the waterfront (not that you could see the water from the road), and some other pretty buildings we saw in town as we wandered through in search of coffee and wifi:
I thought this vase I found in a shop-window was pretty amazing. Something to inspire Petra, maybe:
Next, we headed towards Blackpool (since I’d seen a TV show about it, starring David Tennant) and passed this beautiful white church. I thought at first it must be decked out in marble, but it was tiles instead. Amazing:
Next stop was Blackpool. The beachfront drive is set up with ‘Illuminations’. I don’t know what they’re for, or if they are always on, but they look pretty permanent. They were amazing in any case, with the themed sections – Dr Who stood out to me, of course! The whole thing reminded me a bit of Las Vegas with its kitsch. The giant rollercoaster, the pier with its ferris-wheel, the tower:
We headed onwards to Lancaster, once we finished following the ‘illuminations traffic’ signs that seemed to take us in circles for a while. I couldn’t resist photographing this cute little church in St Michaels-on-Wyre, or the river it was next to, allowing private fishing only (note the fisherman):
Next photo-stop was at Guy’s Thatched Hamlet, which was on the river with lots of longboats parked on it. Made me want to go on a boat ride! The ‘Hamlet’ was cute, but I doubt its authenticity:
Then there was no more stopping til we got to our last pre-booked accommodation at Slyne,Lodge in Slyne, just north of Lancaster. We drove through Lancaster city and are dying to see it! It looks great! Lots of old stones for me :-). I took some photos of the lodge, and then we settled in a bit because they were too busy to serve us dinner before 8pm. The staff were dressed up in various costumes (princess, fairy, commando, life-saver…) for a charity family fun day thing they had going. It was packed! The place had slowed down a bit by 8pm though, so we went in and ordered dinner. It was really good and really reasonably priced! We both had the 8oz rib-eye for 9.95 GBP each (about $18) and it was so tender! Of course there was the standard peas with it, but also grilled tomato and deep fried, battered onion rings (which I thought was calamari at first!), and new potatoes.
Before you ask if we’ve actually seen anything on my list of over 200 attractions….No. We haven’t – well, we did drive through Lancaster but it was too late to stop. Oops?
I couldn’t do much on the blog afterwards because I was seeing double out of one eye. My eyes were really tired, moreso than they should. Probably the sand in the eyes at the sea-side, I think. So it was another early night :-)
