Tuesday 29 December 2015

My Liverpool trip - Day 4 (early morning) - Liverpool-Lisbon flight - final approach to Lisbon airport - The 29th of November 2015


I did leave Liverpool  airport very early in the morning after a short yet sound sleep at a four star hotel., I had not envisaged I'd stay at.

As we were flying over Caparica on our final approach to Lisbon airport I took some incredible photos with my mobile phone and that's when I realised I was happy to be getting closer to home.

The bright sky and the apparent good weather awaiting me at home brought out the good spirits in me.




















My Liverpool trip - Day 3 (afternoon and evening) - Chester - back to te train station ; Liverpool - Around the Cavern Quarter and onto the airport - The 28th of November 2015


As we walked out of Chester's Cathedral it was still raining so we ventured into the Christmas market that surrounded the whole area where the Town Hall was located, but  because of the number of people it was almost impossible to buy anything.
We then decided to make our way back to the train station via the old city walls and try to get back to Liverpool before late afternoon.













Going to Crosby to see the one hundred lonely life sized figures cast in iron and spread across the sands of Liverpool bay - a magestic artistic instalation by the Bristish sculptor Antony Gormley, was out of the question taking into account the bad weather, so when we reached Liverpool we headed back to the city centre and the Cavern Quarter where most Beatles' landmarks  are located before doing a bit of shopping in the outside markets prior to heading to the airport, where we had decided to spend some hours before getting a very early flight back to Lisbon.













The fact that I hadn't wanted to waste money on a hotel short night sleep having such an early flight turned against me in a rather "painful" way, because not much longer after having reached the airport terminal , where there were no seats on which to relax I felt awfully sick and in need of lying down after having thrown up for what looked like an interminable period of time and the only available solution at the time seemed the hotel across the road, which ended up costing me the amount I had spent for the two of us in the last three days.

I reckon I must have been blinded with pain the moment I paid it because under normal circumstances I would have never paid such an amount for a four hour night sleep.



















My Liverpool trip -. Day 3 (morning cont.) - Chester, Chester Cathedral - The 28th of November 2015


(...)

Dating from 1093 and the early 16th century the Chester Cathedral has often been restored. We didn't initially realise how big it was as we wandered about its cloisters lined with Christmas trees decorated artistically.























Once we set foot in its interior I was immediately drawn to some mosaic covered walls, which I tried to photograph despite the gloomy-like atmosphere. I was soon attracted by the wooden quadripartite vault of the choir, which I didn't manage to photograph, as well as the high altar with its reredos and the tile floor of the nave.
 
Some isolated elements were highlighted as I wandered about, amongst which were the nave lectern, the choil , which I later realised dated from the early fourteenth century and the West window twentieth century stainglass by Carter Shepland.










































What seemed rather interesting was the fact that Charles Dickens's characters had become part of the Cathedral's attractions in as much as the Ghost of Jacob Marly, Scrooge in his counting House  with Bob Cratchit and even Scrooge's graveyard with the ghost of Christmas yet to come were "embedded" in various locations of its interior and exterior, all of which apart from extracts from Charles Dicken's tale had "pauses for thought" taken from the Bible were copied down.