{castle life} Kenilworth Castle and Elizabethan Gardens

The weather has gone back to doom and gloom this week, but we did have a “spell” of great warm weather and sunshine at the beginning of the month. To take advantage of it, Minh and I headed down to Coventry to check out Kenilworth Castle and Elizabethan Gardens. While we were down there, we signed up for English Heritage membership, which would allow us to get in free to hundreds of English Heritage sites around the country. Most of these places are ruins of old halls, castles, and abbeys, but they’re still really cool.. arguably cooler than a castle that has been maintained or renovated.

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Kenilworth Castle has a long history, the original castle being built during the Norman Conquest, and the subsequent sections being added as different people acquired the castle. The best story is probably that Robert Dudley (the first Earl of Leicester) built a huge section of the castle and the gardens for Queen Elizabeth I, in the hopes that she would marry him (more to the story than that.. but I’m summarizing).

While we were there, we picked up Nigel (I’ve named him Nigel, since Minh did not give me a name for him)… who will continue with us on our English Heritage adventure. Cute, right?

{museum life} World Museum – Liverpool

The very last museum we visited in Liverpool was the World Museum. We were almost not going to visit it, but one of the docents at the Walker Art Museum had recommended it if we had time. I was really glad that we decided to make time for it because we learned all sorts of interesting things.

For instance… did you know that back in the Victorian age, and well into the 20th century, the used to have public mummy un-wrapping events? This was before they could use x-ray and other technologies to see if the mummies were buried with any treasures or valuables that could be put on display at the museum. In the past, each person who attended the event would come away with a swatch of the mummy wrappings.. WEIRD and COOL! Wish I could have lived in that time period!

We also got to see live bugs!! I’m usually very afraid of bugs in the wild (or in the house.. or just anywhere near me).. but when they’re behind glass, it’s totally fascinating. We didn’t get very clear pictures because it was pretty dark in the bug exhibition, but you can still see what’s behind the glass.

{museum life} Walker Art Museum – Liverpool

The Walker Art Gallery was recommended to us by our waitress at dinner our first night. She said that it was one of her favorite places in the city. We had time on our last day there, so we went to check it out.

What I really liked about it was the way it was laid out (although we didn’t follow the map correctly). It’s laid out so that you go through the art exhibits chronologically (except for the special exhibit). So you can see how art and style has changed through time.

St. George’s Hall and St. John’s Garden – Liverpool

St. George’s Hall is in the heart of Liverpool. We didn’t really know what it was until we walked into it.. all we knew was that it was a recommended place to visit from TripAdvisor. I think what we figured out was that it’s essentially a courthouse and municipal building. Not sure if they still hold trials here, you come here to get your marriage license and things like that. You can also book the place for events and weddings. The hall itself is rather grand, so it would be quite a wedding reception to have here..

Next to St. George’s Hall is St. John’s Gardens. Nothing too spectacular here, but there were some nice sculptures.

Liverpool Cathedral and St. James’ Cemetery

The Liverpool Cathedral is the largest Anglican cathedral in the UK, and the fifth largest in the world. Building started in 1909, but the cathedral wasn’t complete until 1978, which is probably why it’s not damaged from WWII. It was absolutely beautiful inside, and quite majestic. The 16th Earl of Derbyshire is entombed here. The only odd thing about it was the neon sign in the back..

Next to the cathedral is St. James’ Cemetery. The site was originally a stone quarry, that was then repurposed as a cemetery. It was used a cemetery from 1826 to 1936, and had a over 57,000 burials here. It was converted to a park in 1927, and many of the gravestones were cleared. As you can see in the pictures below, it looks like some of the gravestones were used to support the landscaping features like the slopes and ramps.

{museum life} Merseyside Maritime Museum and International Slavery Museum – Liverpool

This is just a quick post on the Merseyside Maritime Museum and the International Slavery Museum. We didn’t take that many pictures inside.. and it was fairly crowded because of the Battle of the Atlantic reenactment that they were doing that day.

We always learn something when we walk into a museum.. like how the White Star Line (think Titanic) was based on Liverpool.. who knew? And to think we weren’t even going to go to the Maritime Museum…

There was also an exhibition on smuggling through the port. It was incredibly interesting (and innovative if you think of all the different ways people try to smuggle things into the country).. but also very dark.. so we didn’t take any pictures. It’s amazing to think how the smuggling and counterfeit industry has been around forever (pretty much since people stopped making their own things and started buying goods) and how clever people are about smuggling things in and out of the country.. especially booze, tobacco, and weapons.

The International Slavery Museum was also very dark.. so we only took a couple pictures. It was also VERY HOT up there.. so we didn’t stay for very long. Probably whizzed buy it the quickest of all the museums that weekend.

We also stopped by the Piermasters House. It was just a mock-up of what a piermaster’s house would have been like during WWII. Since there wasn’t TV or internet to get your news and entertainment from.. people gathered in the family room round the radio and read newspapers. It kinda did feel like we stepped back into the 1940s.

{museum life} Museum of Liverpool

The Museum of Liverpool was a bit overwhelming for me. There’s a lot to see in the museum.. and they pretty much jam all sorts of history in there. I’m pretty sure we missed a lot of it since we got there later in the afternoon. But we did get an overview of the rise and fall of Liverpool as a “great” city, and how the city was affected by world events such as the Industrial Revolution and WWII.

Liverpool Bird (not an actual bird.. but based on many different birds)

Poetry on doors

Model of a Church that was never built

Liverpool fashion (sorry for the glare)

Model of the Three Graces

Punch and Judy

SUPERLAMBANANA!

We watched a short documentary called “The Power and the Glory?”, which pretty much gave us a (very quick) history of England and Liverpool… how Liverpool grew because of trading (import/export) overseas, and how the decline of the British Empire eventually led to the downsizing of the city… It was quite fascinating.

{museum life} Tate Liverpool

Tate Liverpool at Alfred Dock

The Tate Liverpool was smaller than we were expecting, and the Chagall exhibit wasn’t open when we were there.. but we still saw some pretty cool art. The Tate Liverpool is celebrating their 25th anniversary this year, so there was a neat exhibition timeline on the ground floor. We also got some free art books out of it.

SUPERLAMBANANA!!!

Modern and contemporary art often confuses and upsets me. Some things I can see as art.. other things just don’t make sense to me. How can just placing something on a table be art? How can just a collection of things on the floor be art? Boggles the mind….

1 through 9

Live parrots in this art exhibition

Who owns what?

Colorful chandelier in the entrance lobby

basketballs

Andy Warhol

This own’s about racism

Minh told me that this ones pretty famous…

David

This wasn’t art.. this is just a window looking outside…

Alexander Calder

It’s LIVERPOOL!

Liverpool has a reputation. I’m not completely sure what that reputation is, but I got a hint of it from our holiday weekend. In all, we visited 7 museums/places of interest that gave us a pretty nice overview of Liverpool history. We didn’t do much in terms of nightlife or “culture”.. but we still had a good time.

More on the museums later.. but here are some pictures that we took around town.. starting with the Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King. We didn’t get to go inside because it was already late by the time we got there.. but we took a stroll around the outside. It’s actually really cool looking, especially with the stained glass panels that surround it.

Front Steps

Stained glass panel

Outdoor altar in the back

Back in the day, Liverpool had a huge Chinese population. Chinese people first came to Liverpool in the 1850s, involved in the shipping of silk and cotton wool. Overtime, the Chinese population has dwindled down a bit, and Chinatown may not be as spectacular as it once was, but they do boast the largest multispan arch outside of China.

And we thought 7-11 didn’t exist here…

From one end of Chinatown.. you can see clear down to the other end..

Something random that we stumbled upon while we were walking around… the Bombed Out Church (a.k.a. Church of St. Luke). The cathedral was more or less destroyed during WWII, during the Liverpool Blitz. Now it’s used as an outdoor venue for events. We didn’t get a chance to go inside, but we did get some good shots of the outside (and “inside” shots with the GoPro that Minh will post on his blog).

Scattered around Liverpool are these Superlambanana sculptures. The original superlambanana was a gigantic (17-foot tall) bright yellow sculpture that was supposed to be a cross between a lamb and a banana. As part of Liverpool’s Capital of Culture celebrations, smaller superlambananas were commissioned and located throughout the city. Each was painted by a different artists. Here are just a few that we came across during our visit…

Outside 60 Hope Street

The Peacock

Above the Royal Court Theatre

ROAR!!!

Clown… scary

Another thing we came across while in Liverpool was random messages and art on buildings. Some of it was old and faded.. others newer.

We spent a lot of time over by Alfred Dock checking out the museums.. Here are some shots of the dock and the “Three Graces” down the street. The “Three Graces” is comprised of the Royal Liver Building, the Cunard Building and the Port of Liverpool Building. We didn’t go inside any of them, but they were very nice from the outside…

And lastly for now.. just down the street from our hotel (on Hope Street) was a collection of luggage. Some of the luggage belonged to some famous people you may have heard of.. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Charles Dickens.. just to name a few.

Shorts Weather – Crosby Beach

Minh and I started off our Liverpool weekend with a trip to the beach. Now, back in California, 60*F weather would not usually warrant a day at the beach.. but here in the UK (where they’ve been having an unusually cold spring), any day when the sun comes out is a beach day.

Great day to go to the BEACH!

Crosby Beach is located north of Liverpool.. and it’s not a “bathing” beach.. probably because the water is brown and gross. Along a stretch of Crosby Beach is Antony Gormley‘s Another Place. This work of art is made up of 100 cast figures spread across 3 kilometers of the beach and out as far as 1 kilometer into the ocean. Each figure is based on the artist’s body and weights about 650 kg (over 1400 lb). At high tide, all of the figures are submerged underwater… Luckily, we came during low(ish) tide…

Taking a ride on the outdoor gym

not a cloud in the sky!

these birds think that they’re seagulls

Check out GoPro shots over on Minh’s Blog

Even “weeds” can grow in the sand

Each figure is numbered

This one wasn’t even the furthest out

The wind (overtime) was strong enough to bury this handrail

left out mark…