Wednesday 10 September - Hull

We can see this church from the living room window, it is just across the Shambles near Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma gate

We took the train to Hull. The electronic information boards said it was on time right until we left 10 minutes late. The guard apologized for the delay but pointed out that we arrived in Hull on time.  There are many semaphore signals and signal boxes on this line from Selby east, presumably the boxes have been retained to control the many level crossings with roads. The land is generally flat, mainly arable with a few sheep and cattle. Several churches, surrounded by trees, marked the small communities. The large Humber bridge heraldedour arrival. 

The man at the tourist office was very helpful in spite of his strange Humber accent.  95% of the buildings were damaged during the war. However, many notable buildings have been retained and restored. 

The Punch Hotel seems to have survived from the bombing just as a facade which has been turned into a good pub.

Brakspear Brewery is in Whitney, Oxfordshire

We walked down to the Deep which is a large aquarium.  On the way we passed the barrier which has been used several times to stop flooding of the city during exceptionally high tides. The foreshore is comprised of soft, deep mud. The Deep has a large tank with some interesting fish but the emphasis is on a lot of small exhibits which makes the focus blurred and the experience difficult to follow.  I kept waiting to see the large tank in all its glory but this only came right at the end. There was a lot of emphasis upon saving the planet and it's endangered species. I felt cockroaches, centipedes and toads were not really relevant. Altogether the Deep was disappointing compared to Genova or Lisbon.

 

This is a species of small conger eels which poke their heads out of the sand.  They were watching us.

The coral reef was very well done.

Holy Trinity church is the largest parish church in England.  The vicar is very progressive who is promoting non-ecclesiastical uses for this well preserved building.  A man in a pub praised him for putting on a very good Real Ale Festival in here

We just kept looking up and saw a great number of interesting and beautiful decorations

The tourist leaflet mentioned the smallest window in England at the Crown so we went in for a drink - Fullers London Pride -but couldn't find the window.. The barman took us outside and pointed out a small slit.

The actual window is the black slit to the right.  It now looks into a rarely used utility room but the barman has put a face in there for the kids to see.

The Streetscene Museum of Transport is well done. There are not a lot of exhibits but what they have are well preserved and presented.

We made our way back to the station passing the very impressive Old Court Building.

One end of the long Old Court Building

The Princes Quay shopping centre is a three level swanky place built over the water near the Marina. It has fallen on hard times and large parts are vacant.

We found a number of covered shopping arcades or galleries. Reminiscent of Paris.

Click here to see all pictures taken at Hull
The Hull station is enormous, possibly the largest covered station I have seen.  A large part of it is a parking lot and one section contains the bus station with at least 35 bus bays.

The evening light was good on the way back to York.  We were running on time until a dead stand for at least 5 minutes just outside York. Traffic regulation seems to be a problem here.

We had a drink at the Blue Bell. There was a discussion going on about the safe areas of the town.
"I grew up in xxxx".
"Oh so you had shoes then".
(This is a comment about the bad old days when, in poor areas, the families could not always afford to give their kids shoes. in some cases a kid would come to school on alternate days because he shared a pair of shoes with a brother or sister.)

There's nothing like a packet of scratchings to give you a boost.