Cities on two coasts - Brighton & Liverpool

25 October - 01 November

I caught a train down to England's south coast and Brighton. I had a brief look around in the afternoon at the somewhat tacky but iconic pier and the arcade and amusement park on it, before catching up with two friends I met in Cusco (Peru), Daile and John...

The pier in all it's glory on a typical Brighton day

Had you forgotten you were in England? Don't forget your mushy peas.

In true Cusco-cum-English style, Daile and John Fev showed me some of the evening sights of Brighton (beer and fish and chips, in other words). It was great to catch up on the post-Cusco South American travels we'd each had, reminiscing on stories and the other friends we'd made there. The next morning didn't feel so good... But I met up with them again for brunch anyway.

Fev was playing around with the camera at brunch

Brighton also has a couple of pretty cool shopping areas called The Laines and North Lane, the latter of which had all sorts of interesting hippie type shops (that I never would buy anything from). The former looked like this.

The narrow alleyways of The Laines.

I spent my last day in Brighton relaxing, a bit of blogging, wandering around The Laines again and later on sheltering from the stormy rain that came through. I decided to find some live music though and found an electric blues band to accompany a few beers with strangers.

I'd booked a cheap train ticket with three connections all the way through to Liverpool for the next morning, and woke up to news of railway mayhem - all sorts of closures due to the previous day's storm. Eventually I ended up being waved through various ticket machines in London and ended up on the much more expensive express London-Liverpool service for the price of my original ticket, and arrived earlier than scheduled. Sure.

That evening I headed out with two French guys in the hostel, after dinner heading to The Cavern Club, which is famously where the Beatles first ever performed. Unsurprisingly, the club is now home to musicians playing almost continuous Beatles covers, and we joined in with everyone else singing Hey Jude, A Hard Day's Night, and almost everything else you could think of. The restaurant next door was open for great dinner "Eight Days a Week". Of course, the next day, I went to the Beatles Museum, which was pretty interesting with all sorts of memorabilia, interesting facts and figures etc.

Entrance to the Beatles' first ever performance venue, Liverpool's The Cavern

A wall of fame of Cavern Club, on Mathew Street, with all bands who played there between 1957-1973 as well as some who have played there since it's reopening in the 1990s.
Names included: The Beatles, Queen, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Oasis, Elton John, Rod Stewart, Eric Clapton, Howlin' Wolf, The Kinks, John Lee Hooker...

The other thing I wanted to do in Liverpool was to visit the home of Liverpool FC, Anfield, so I headed out to the famed ground and joined a tour. It was well organised, and included the dressing rooms, the press room, and of course the ground itself and the (in)famous Kop stand.

Outside the stadium

You'll Never Walk Alone

Welcome to The Kop

The Kop from inside

Liverpool FC's dressing room

Liverpool's Champion's trophies

Later, down on the waterfront, I spent some time in the Maritime Museum, which had some good displays on slavery and the Titanic, and found Liverpool's famous Liver Bird.

On the Liverpool waterfront

The Liver Bird atop the Docks of Liverpool building

For my final night I couldn't help but go back to the Cavern Club again for some more Beatles sing-alongs with two other guys from the hostel. This time there was an exciting twist... Being the person there from the farthest away (go New Zealand!) a guy playing covers asked me up onto the stage to "stand where Paul McCartney once stood and sing to the crowd" - some 200 people! That was a pretty cool experience...

On the stage at The Cavern Club singing John Lennon's Imagine

I was down to my last week in Europe, with one final stopover - to see my old friend Max in Oxford, the pinnacle of English teaching.