July 7 - Heathrow to Liverpool

We arrived in the United Kingdom a little before nine this morning (Greenwich Mean Time) and were greeted by long queues at the border control, cloudy skies, and rain. Our flight was uneventful and not very interesting to write about, so I won't go into it, but I will add that the dinner they served us was actually quite good. Shocker number one for the trip.

We collected our Ford estate car (station wagon) from the rental lot, spent the next few minutes figuring out how this whole "drive on the other side of the road" works, and headed up the M40 towards Liverpool. So far, I have noticed two distinct things about the British highway system. First, roundabouts: when you experience them in real life, you see how vastly superior they are to four-way stops or other North American road patterns. Also very different are the "services" (rest stops) which come along every twenty minutes or so, each have at least five or six different (including shops selling traditional Cornish pasties!) food options to choose from, and seem to always be busy.

Late this afternoon we pulled into the Liverpool Holiday Inn for stage one of the trip. We're only here for one night, and the only reason we came here was because I wanted to see Anfield (Liverpool Football Club's stadium), but I planned the trip so I took personal liberties with the itinerary. We had dinner at a chicken restaurant called Nando's - sort of a cross between Swiss Chalet and KFC. I can assure you it was far tastier than that description suggests.

This evening we went for a walk around Liverpool, which as it turns out is a really lovely city. We saw the Cavern, made famous by the Beatles, as well as some truly glorious architecture.

The highlight of the walk was the old dockyards, where warehouses have been turned into apartments, restaurants, museums, and shops.

And, of course, a few canal boats.







That's all for now! Tomorrow, Anfield and then on to Oxfordshire!
GWV