Another huge day so lots of photos. It might take some time for the page to load!
After a lovely breakfast at Hamilton Court Guest House,
Satoshi in the dining room having breakfast with all his friends!
we headed back to Llangollen to go on the Llangollen Railway. This is a 16km restored section of a much longer railway. On the way, we bought some diesel for the car. Fuel in UK is very expensive - about DOUBLE what we pay. Remember the amount shown in the picture below is in pounds!
You may not immediately appreciate why I took a photo of this fairly nondescript shop in Llangollen...
until you see the name of it!
We got to the station in time to take some photos of the engine before we departed at 10:40am.
For much of the journey, the railway runs alongside the River Dee.
There were several lovely houses along the line too.
There is no passing loop at the end of the line so, for the first part of the journey back, the train is in reverse with the engine at the back. At the first station, the loco is shunted around the carriages and coupled to the front of the train (although the loco itself does the return journey in reverse, just like Puffing Billy in Belgrave).
Back at Llangollen, the engine is again shunted around the train ready for the next trip. It makes for a great photo opportunity!
We both very much enjoyed the trip, which included a tunnel. The guard came along just before the tunnel to make sure all the windows were closed - they don't want all the smoke from the loco coming inside the carriages.
Back at Llangollen there is a Corn Mill and the River Dee.
Then it was on to Liverpool to visit the Cathedrals. Today we visited the Anglican Cathedral which is the largest in the U.K. It is very convenient in that there is a car park right outside.
It is not until you get inside that you really appreciate just how enormous this building is! This is a view from near the back looking down the nave towards the high altar.
The Nave Altar
The High Altar
Detail of the High Altar frontal
The Quire. Note the beautiful floor tiles.
A stone angel above the choir
Details from just one of the hundreds of windows. The second is a depiction of Joshua.
Within the Cathedral itself is the Lady Chapel
This is a small section of the window above depicting Mary and Jesus
The Altar in the Lady Chapel
A detail of the reredos at the back of the Altar in the Lady Chapel. Cathedrals contain so many beautiful works of art.
The Cathedral is SO large that there is not one but THREE lifts!
It is logical, I suppose, that contained within the largest Cathedral is the largest pipe organ in the UK. It consists of 200 stops and over 10,000 pipes! Some of the pipes can be seen in the photo of the Nave Altar above. You can hear the organ here (!) and see some more images of the cathedral at the same time.
Also contained within the cathedral is a café and a gift shop. We couldn't believe that anyone would buy an Advent Calendar for their cat!
This Cathedral is not old like some of the others we have visited. Building began in 1910 and was not completed until 1978. The architect was Giles Gilbert Scott (the grandson of the more famous Sir George Gilbert Scott). A bonus for us was to hear the choir rehearsing and then to attend Evensong (where, once again, we had the privilege of sitting in the canons' stalls). The music was absolutely beautiful and consisted of the responses by Bernard Rode, Psalms 121 & 122, the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis in A by Stanford, and one of my favourite anthems They that Go Down to the Sea in Ships by Herbert Sumsion. You can here it here sung by the Choir of Ely Cathedral.
We had dinner at Pizza Express and then went on the Wheel of Liverpool, a 60m Ferris Wheel.
This is a quite impressive 60m tall but then the Melbourne Eye is 120m tall!
It was difficult to get a photo of the view without reflections or parts of the wheel getting in the way but this gives you an idea!
We have been so blessed by good weather. It has hardly rained at all and only for very short periods of time. The temperature has been about 14° degrees.