Beatles Mania

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After three weeks of travelling and me being extremely slack with the travel blog, we have found ourselves in Liverpool for two days of Beatles overload.

We arrived this morning and promptly ordered a Fab Four Taxi Tour to take us to see the sights. This was essentially a big black cab (yes, the London type just not quite as expensive) and our own private tour guide for 3 hours who drove us around, told us the stories, took photos for us, and basically met Joel's needs for Beatles information.

From Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields, Elanor Rigby and the church yard where John and Paul were introduced through to their childhood homes - we now have photos of them all. And to finish off the evening, we headed to the Cavern which is the club where the Beatles first started to get big in Liverpool.

Oh, and the journey has not yet finished for us. Tomorrow we are going to be going on a tour inside the childhood homes of John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

Now for those of you playing along at home, our travels have taken us a fair way through the UK and I have skipped a fair bit jumping straight into Liverpool... so here is a shortened version of our travels so far (well, hopefully short).

We headed straight out of London the day after arriving and headed to Wells and Glastonbury, of course to see the famous Tor (or mountain) as well as the ruined abbey and King Arthur's supposed burial place.

Having stayed two nights in the lovely cathedral town of Wells, we headed down to Cornwall, taking the scenic route. A route which became even more scenic than we had planned when the GPS died and we made a pit stop into what we thought was going to be a normal village on the coast called Clovelly, but turned out to be a tourist attraction being located at the very bottom of a walk down only cliff... needing a power source, we snuck in the back way, avoiding the entrance fees and availed ourselves of their powerpoint. Once there we decided to check it out, and were very glad we did. Despite our moanings that the trek was huge, there were lots of little old ladies and gents hobbling down the cobbled path to the very pretty village at the bottom of the cliff.
Once the GPS was revived we headed to Tintagel, the next stop on our King Arthur tour - his supposed birthplace. Being battered by strong winds and seas it is no suprise that the castle is in complete ruins, with signs everywhere warning tourists to take care on exposed and unstable cliff edges... hmmm. But definitely worth the climb!

Our final destination was the Lizard penninsula (the most southerly point of the UK) to meet up with Joel's cousin. By this stage we were getting alittle tired of the UK summer were experiencing, constant drizzles, overcast and the occasoinal full down pour! But we had a lovely time exploring Cornwall, and a few more walk only towns at the bottom of cliffs, surprisingly where the fishermen hang out and they serve the yummiest fish and chips 😊

Heading out of Lizard, we made our way to Lanhydrock House, to put in Joel's family claim to the title of the Earl of Radnor... apparently on his Grandmother's side there is a connection. And I must say it is a huge old house, very well maintained by the National Trust so I think it could be worth a bit more research and perhaps a serious bid ofr the title 😊

Making our way across the south of the country, we passed thorugh Lyme Regis, Jane Austen's summer holiday area, as well as Winchester for a look at another Cathedral before getting to Brighton which was the end of our southerly adventure.

We then made our way back up to London to meet with our hosts Emma and Andrew who were perfect hosts and guides, looking after us for our week in London. While we made sure we ticked most of the tourist boxes for London, our off the map find was The Rose theatre. Rivalled to Shakespeare's Globe at the time, being Chistopher Marlow's theatre, The Rose is now only an excavation site just a block away from the overly touristy Globe theatre. While most of my Shakespeare history has been learnt from re-runs of the movie Shakespeare in Love, I did recognise many of the names and stories behind the theatre rivalry, and we were even able to see a Marlow play performed that evening. The play was Dr Faustus, about a doctor who sells his soul to the Devil - a very dark and eery play performed in a very dark and eery setting, the same place it had originally been performed hundreds of years ago.

I think that might be enough of a debrief for now, jsut in short we left London (having met with my Aunt Jan and cousin Ali) and headed to Stonehenge, Bath and Stratford upon Avon, before Joel and I made our way to north Wales where we spent a few lovely nights up on the coast.

Love to all
Steph and Joel xxoo

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Comments

[tina]

what a lovely trip -
hi joel and steph - lovely way to share your photos - what a great trip - if you go to scotland - dont forget to go to glenlivet - where joel's great grandfather is buried along with various other rellies - joel visited there when he was three months old - and his gr.grandfather - john davidson took him all through the village - it is home to the glenlivet whisky and he had a sign on the door 'thirsts quenched here"! xx