I’d briefly toyed with the idea of going to a Beatles tribute band show at the Cavern Club tonight, but having had two experiences now of horrid traffic chaos at Manchester airport, we decided we’d be better off staying the night at a hotel at the airport. Otherwise I could just see Simon making me get up at 5 am for our 11 am flight.
The conference finished early on the last day so we decided to visit Chester en route. It was about 45 minutes drive from Liverpool, but when we were having our late pub lunch I had the sudden thought, are we actually in Wales? Simon didn’t know either and we didn’t want to ask anyone in case it was a really stupid question, which I suppose it was. We certainly saw a number of signs around the town centre that were in both languages. Anyway, even with the crappy data signal which was all we could get in our dingy pub, we ascertained that we were in fact still in England.
We originally had an ambitious plan for a two hour walk of the highlights of central Chester, but we soon abandoned that in the face of persistent rain. In the end we did the 50 minute walk around the remarkably well preserved city walls that encircle the old town. It’s quite an attractive place, with at least as many old Tudor buildings as Colmar but less colourful and with far fewer tourists.
It also has Britain’s oldest racecourse, improbably named Roodee, which dates from 1539. The mayor at the time was called Henry Gee, from whence comes the name “gee gees” for horses. I love stories like that.
Another thing Chester has that Colmar doesn’t (apart from British weather, sadly) is Roman ruins. These have been removed from their original locations around town and put on display in a central garden area, in a fairly typical act of cultural vandalism. They are pretty, though. (On second thought, Colmar might well have some Roman ruins, perhaps preserved in their rightful spots, oops).
It was early evening by the time we were back on the road. Traffic was unpredictable, with strange inexplicable slow downs, so we were both happy we weren’t dealing with it on the morning of our flight.
We had dinner at one of the other airport hotels, which was very busy but surprisingly good. It’s a tricky airport to find your way around on foot and in the dark, so it was quite an adventure getting to the restaurant and back. Luckily there were only intermittent and fairly minor disagreements about navigation.
An early night, only slightly disturbed by sounds of loud hilarity from our fellow guests, for which I blame the hotel’s alcohol policy.
