May 13, 2015

May 13, 2015

We awakened to a temperature of 11 C, a little wind and sunny. We are in Liverpool today, the home of the Beatles. Liverpool was given a Royal Charter in 1207.

Some of the tours offered by the ship were trips to Windermere and the Lake District; the walled city of Chester and its Cathedral; places in Liverpool connected to The Beatles; Conwy Castle, a medieval 13^th century Welsh fortress ruin mostly intact and Port Sunlight. Port Sunlight is a village founded for Sunlight soap factory employees by W. H. Lever, a partner in Lever Brothers. By 1888, he had purchased the land to build a factory, port facilities and town site, so that his workers would have proper housing at affordable rents. He also built public buildings including schools in the village. As a good employer, he was inspired by the Garden Suburb Movement philosophy of the late 1800s for designing the new community.

Today is the first time that the Royal Princess ship visits Liverpool. This morning there was a ceremony, partly acknowledging Princess Cruises 50th Anniversary, complete with a balloon release, launched by a town crier in full grab featuring the Lord Mayor of Liverpool, Erica Kemp, and the Royal Princess’s Captain Nash officially unveiling the Spirit of Liverpool Liver Bird, a modern interpretation of the city’s iconic emblem. Also The Liverpool Ukulele Band strummed Happy Birthday.

Just after 9 a.m., we walked off the ship near Pier Head to see the sights en route to the Liverpool cathedrals – the Anglican Cathedral, the largest in Great Britain, and the Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King. We walking up Water Street past City Hall snapping photos of buildings such as the British and Foreign Maritime Insurance Building along the pedestrian zone on Lord Street and Church Street to Darby Square and it’s statue of Queen Victoria. We saw the shell of St. Luke’s Church that was bombed by Germans during the Liverpool blitzes of World War II, now its yard is used for festivals and concerts. We passed the home of the Liverpool Philharmonic Society and the neighbouring Philharmonic Dining Room decorated building. Once at the University of Liverpool, we stood at the foot of the 59 steps up to the Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King, at a crossroad. It is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Liverpool and the seat of the Archbishop of Liverpool. When Catholics were once again allowed to practice their faith in open after 1829 plus with an influx of Irish Catholics to Liverpool due to the 1847 Irish Potato famine, it was decided that a cathedral should be built in Liverpool. The first attempt was in 1853 when the first design’s Lady Chapel was started and completed in three years and was used for over 125 years before being demolished. It was not until 1922 that a campaign was started to raise funds for a cathedral. A foundation stone was laid in 1933 for the Lutyens design on Brownlow Hill, but only the Crypt was completed . In the early 1950s, the archbishop decided to scale down the Lutyens design and hired Adrian Gilbert Scott, but the idea was scraped. The present cathedral was built in the 1960s, after an international competition with guidelines that the building shell should be built in five years at a cost of less than £1,000,000 and it would complement the Crypt. The completed Frederick Gibberd designed cathedral, with a spiked lantern tower containing 25,000 pieces of stained glass, was consecrated on May 14, 1967. The interior is bathed in blue light as the daylight filters through the tower to the main worship area.  The design is different with the altar being in the center of the church so that no one is seated more than 25 feet from the altar section. The most stained glass is located high above in the soaring tower. Renewal has been completed in the past decade to correct problems with the modern building materials used in the construction process. We continued along Hope Street for about five blocks, taking photos of buildings as we walked along to St. James Mount where the Anglican Cathedral, the fifth largest in the world, and its cemetery, St. James Garden, are located. Inside the 1907 structure were beautiful stained glass windows and chapels including the Charter House. Parts of the pipe organ are visible high up on an interior wall. Next ,we strolled back toward the waterfront to Albert Dock and passed, Liverpool’s Chinatown‘s Chinese Ceremonial Arch, built in 2000 from pieces shipped from Shanghai. In the mid 1800s, Chinese seamen arrived in Liverpool as employees of the Blue Funnel Shipping Line, and soon began settling in Liverpool.  Established after 1890, it was the first Chinatown in Europe. As we continued we stopped at Paradise and Hanover streets to photograph Hancery House with a Sunlight delivery truck on the street.  Arriving at the restored historic Albert Dock, we could see the large ferris wheel called the Wheel of Liverpool along the banks of the Mercey River near the arena and convention center. Albert Dock was a working dock back in 1846, but now is redeveloped and a UNESCO World Heritage site featuring listed heritage warehouses accommodating shops, two hotels, crafts and award-winning visitor attractions, such as The Beatles Story and Tate Liverpool Gallery. Steps 13,338. We stopped for lunch at a café called “What’s Cooking”. We ordered Celery and Apple creamed soup and wraps for £6.95 (about $12 Cdn) each plus beverage, beer or cappuccino. Our final stop of the afternoon, still in the World Heritage site, was the Mercey Maritime Museum.   We spent three hours examining the exhibits about the torpedo sinking of the (Royal Mail Steamer) RMS Lusitania, the building and sinking of the RMS Titanic and the Canadian, American and British North Atlantic ship conveys supplying Britain during World War II. There was no time to investigate the Slave Labour Museum on the third floor.

Not far from the Albert Dock along the banks of the Mercey River is the ferry terminal and the cruise ship terminal. On the seven minute walk from the museum back to the ship we passed the early 20^th century buildings built on the former George’s Dock, known as “Three Graces” - the Royal Liver Building, completed in 1911 a multi-storey reinforced concrete framed building (which was new building material at the time), the Cunard Building, completed in 1918, and the Port of Liverpool Building, completed in 1907, and zoomed the camera for a photo of the White Star building (completed in 1897), now known as Albion House Hotel, a Titanic themed hotel.  The Royal Liver Building clock towers are topped with 18 foot high mythical copper liver birds. One faces the water and the other faces the city.  We checked our email using the free Wi-Fi in the Liverpool cruise terminal.

.As the ship left its berth to sail to Belfast, opera singer Danielle Thomas sang from a boom lift to passengers on their balconies or watching from deck 16 or through windows on the lower restaurant levels.

There was no dancing before dinner. We joined our table and found that Brian and Brendene had switched tables with Ken and Evangeline.  Appetizers were warm crab & artichoke dip with bagel thins, seasoned field greens salad or Scotch broth & rice soup; then for entrées we chose grilled seafood skewers with jasmine rice and corn salsa or shrimp & steak with roast potato, asparagus& carrots. Dessert was chocolate mousse cake or rhubarb napoleon with vanilla ice cream.

Today’s entertainment in the Princess Theatre was a Beatles Tribute band, which we arrived for early in order to get seats, due the show popularity and the theatre not being very large.  After the show Karen and Peter caught up to us and we all went to the Vines Wine Bar and watched a 45 minute song & dance show in the Piazza, then it was time to end the day.   Total steps for today 17,167