This was where the ITV programme This Morning used to be broadcast from. There was a weather map floating on the dock’s surface.
Weather Map photo (from Wikipedia) taken by Mike Pennington:-
Many years after its weather presenter spent his mornings leaping from Britain to Ireland and back again he was prosecuted for child abuse, found guilty and jailed. Liverpool is most likely glad ITV moved from there some time ago.
Albert Dock, Liverpool:-
The dock is now home to a variety of pleasure boats while the old warehouses on the docks are filled with shops and eateries.
Boat in Albert Dock:-
View of and from Albert Dock, Liverpool with Museum of Liverpool, Cunard Building and Royal Liver Building in the background:-
The Beatles song about Penny Lane in Liverpool makes it sound quite urban but at the end where the famous street sign is it’s leafy. (That’s our tour bus parked at the side of the road):-
Street name sign. (Not original. They keep getting nicked):-
More leafiness but beginnng to get built-up:-
Still more buildings:-
Mostly residential but a few workplaces. Some of the workers wave at the tour bus:-
There’s a barber shop in this one (but I didn’t see a banker waiting for a trim):-
End of Penny Lane. The white-painted building is the Penny Lane Hotel:-
Not Penny Lane but instead the road where Paul McCartney was brought up. (The bus isn’t allowed to go along it as there’s no suitable turning place):-
…. because I’ve been to Strawberry Fields. (Or more correctly it seems Strawberry Field.):-
Behind these gates was apparently a children’s home and though Wikipedia has John Lennon climbing into the place to play with them the guide on the bus tour our friends had booked said he would play truant from his own school hoping to catch a glimpse of girls beyond the trees behind the gates.
The present gates are replicas:-
When Lennon’s parents’ marriage fell apart he was taken in by his Aunt Mimi.
This is her house. They had a reasonably comfortable existence here you’d think:-
Note the notice on the gate post and the blue plaque on the house:-
In Liverpool reminders of the Beatles are never far away. Sgt Pepper flower bed:-
I seem not to have posted this before even though I took the photogaphs in April 2012.
Stratford-upon-Avon has two civic war memorials, one for the Great War, moved to near the river from its original location, and another for the Second World War on a wall nearby.
Great War Memorial:-
World War 2 memorial:-
This web page shows the memorials’ relative dispositions.
On another nearby wall is King Edward’s School Boat Club War Memorial – for both wars:-
Between the Great War Memorial and the Second World War Memorial lies a memorial to an individual. I’m afraid I can no longer remember whom it commemorates and the writing is too indistinct to make out when magnified.
I thought I’d take a respite from Norway for a while so here are some pictures of Liverpool where our friends from Rochdale took us on one of our days with them.
Liverpool is a bustling city with a lot of fine architecture.
Liverpool Anglican Cathedral from the side of the River Mersey:-
It’s a traditional kind of building, quite chunky and solid.
View from the road:-
Liverpool Catholic Cathedral is by contrast in a much more modern style, a bit like a tepee in appearance:-
Keeping up the ecclesiastical theme, the bus tour we were taken on stopped at traffic lights by St Luke’s, a bombed out church which wasn’t restored after World War 2 as reminder and memorial:-
I took this photo from the ship as we were leaving Olden. It’s a local hotel and has Art Deco/Moderne styling but may be later in construction:-
There’s a turf-roofed chalet to the right of centre on this photo of the hillside behind the pier:-
The locals gave us a flag-waving send-off:-
There was someone in one of the higher up chalets waving a Union Jack but I didn’t manage to get the picture. The ones on the pier had a musical accompaniment:-
Looking up to Lake Floen from falls on Oldeelva river:-
On the way back to Olden village we decided not to take the road again but to walk the path on the other side of the river.
This required walking across wooden catwalks/bridges. You can see other such walkways in photos in previous posts:-
One of them had this small bird (a dipper?) perched on it
Looking back towards the falls:-
There was a path of sorts – more suitable for bikes really – but eventually after having to cross some grass we hit on a semi-metalled road. This was the view back up towards the lake:-
We followed a path from the bridge over the Oldeelva river up to a road that curled round Lake Floen. We could perhaps have walked all the way round but I wasn’t sure there would be a bridge or connection to the other side so we turned back after reaching the lakeside. (Looking up maps later it turned out there was a connection and there is in fact a further lake (Oldevatnet) beyond that, apparently fed by the Briksdal glacier.)
Before we reached Lake Floen on our walk up from Olden we came to a bridge over the River Oldeelva just where it spills over a falls. The river is quite fast moving here. Worth a video or two I thought:-
From over the bridge:-
Both of those were shot looking up towards the lake. This one is looking down towards Olden:-
After our stroll through Olden village we walked the road up past the new Olden Church – an older church building is in the centre of the village – in search of the lake we had been told wasn’t far away. The road runs beside the Oldeelva river for a while. It reminded me a bit of Scottish rivers.
River Oldeelva, Olden, Norway:-
The new church is in a typical Norwegian style:-
Closer view:-
Olden Church from graveyard. Note guy wires. According to the information in the link above a huge storm moved the church by 60 centimetres in 1967. The wires are to make sure that doesn’t happen again:-
Altar and stained glass, Olden Church:-
Organ loft:-
Looking back to Olden from a bit further up the road. The church and the SS Black Watch can be seen in centre of picture with the Oldeelva river meandering through in foreground.:-
