How much of this fair land of ours have you lads actually visited?
I've just been thinking about it and there's so many places in Britain I've never particularly laid my eyes on, especially the scenery and landscapes of Scotland. What are the "hidden gems" here that you would recommend people really should visit at least once in their lives? Unhidden gems too, for that matter.
Today I have been to Lincoln. I like the area around the castle and cathedral but there's a point near the bottom of Steep Hill, I think it's marked by an All Bar One or something like that, where it suddenly moves from the tourist area to where the locals frequent and you find yourself surrounded by window-lickers. I believe almost all of Lincoln's city centre shopping is concentrated on a single high street, so it was absolutely rammed. I'm fairly certain there was a human turd not far outside of the Primark.
>>467179 I think I should get involved and point out that this poster isn’t me. I’m the poster who has done Liverpool, Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield, Preston, Blackpool, Burnley, Chester, and possibly a couple more. I would love to visit Lincoln too, but it’s pretty hard to get to from Manchester via Northern Rail, which is how I travel. I’m glad that there’s someone else doing the same thing, and it’s doubly good that he lives a long way from me. But there are at least two of us doing this.
>>467179 Otherlad (>>467181) goes by train, I go by car. I wouldn't recommend driving in Lincolnshire as many drivers love speeding, love tailgating and hate using their indicators.
Fair enough. I am going to start doing it too in the new year when I have sorted my shit financial situation out a bit. I will probably go by train so I can have a few pints in whatever place I end up. I do a fair bit of driving to countryside places for walkies but I prefer having someone to come with me for those.
Is there some kind of price comparison site or whatever for trains, so I can just kind of look at cheap fares, pick a bargain, and let that decide where I am going for me?
I have the app on my phone but it only really helps if you know where you are going. I mean something like, you put in the station you are starting from, and it shows you all the outgoing destinations, like what you can do with air travel.
>>467191 There's also Real Time Trains, which shows you all trains from every station and where they're going and when, which is amazing. But you can't buy tickets from it.
Rochdale is grim. I can't quite put my finger on why, but I find post-industrial shitholes in Lancashire to be much more bleak than their Yorkshire counterparts.
>>467291 It's the people. I went there a few months ago, and was impressed at how incredible a lot of the buildings were, and the park right in the centre, and the immense Town Hall. Then a man walked out of the pub next to the Town Hall and started pissing on it, at four in the afternoon, and that's why Rochdale is grim.
I've spent a fair bit of time thinking about this, and I have concluded it's because it's much more flat. Places in Yorkshire still have some residual character because it's all hills, and that forces the towns to have daft illogical layouts. Most of Manchester and the Lanctastrian shitholes you refer to are just sprawling rows of nasty cramped terraced houses that should have been demolished by now as slum clearance.
That, and most of the Yorkshire ones are at least made out of nice sandstone, not red brick. I was around Woodhouse and Hyde Park, near the uni, in Leeds the other day. Reminded me how those areas are definitely the worst parts of the city. People always name Harehills or Seacroft or wherever, but they pale in comparison to those claustrophobic streets full of back to backs, where even when the sun is out you're always in the shade because you're so densely surrounded by buildings. All red brick, fronting directly onto tarmac.
Today I learned about Too Good To Go, an app where you can buy heavily discounted food direct from high street shops that would otherwise have been thrown away.
Today I've been to the National Space Centre in Leicester. It was pretty decent, particularly the planetarium and spaceport experience, with my main grumble being other people (mainly those with small children).
You get an annual pass but that only includes one free planetarium show, so you'll have to pay if you want to watch another one on a further visit. I don't know if there's enough there to justify a second visit without seeing what else is around Leicester, but it did seem like a bit of a shit hole. That said, I picked up some rather nice khaman from one of the newsagents there.
In it's early days, I once had a TooGoodToGo meal at a chain carvery. The manager of the carvery in question took exception to my presence because she wanted to give the leftovers to some homeless who regularly came by for some. She stood in the middle of the restaurant screaming and shouting at me about how terrible a person I am, how I was stealing food from the hungry and how I didn't need it because I was working. It made me so stressed out that I couldn't finish the meal. This only enraged the woman further.
In the end I left feeling humiliated. I got a limp apology to my complaint and no vouchers or anything. I wouldn't have used them anyway, because I've never gone back.
>>468636 I liked it when I went. The centre is nice, and every road I walked down inexplicably led me back to the exact same place, so I got to see the wonderful city centre eight or nine times. I only went once but I can probably draw the Alhambra theatre from memory.
I went to Bolton today. I wanted to go to Lancaster, but that train was cancelled and I never really care where I explore, so I picked somewhere much, much closer to Manchester. And I must say, it's too close to Manchester. It has no identity of its own; I didn't even hear anyone with that ghastly accent that Paddy McGuinness and Philomena Cunk have. Things pick up a little bit once you get lost and find some interesting buildings, but Bolton really suffers from not having either a park or a river in the centre. There are meant to be parks further out, but for some reason I got lost every single time I went down any street at all, so I was reluctant to walk too far. Considering my above comments about Bradford, perhaps my sense of direction is worse than I always assumed. Today was an overcast day in January, too, of course, so I couldn't use the sun for directions. Bolton was also suspiciously polared; I expected it to be a lot busier than it was. Bolton Wanderers were playing at home today (https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/live/c77r468j80lt?page=3), but only 19,946 people went and they didn't even win. In the end, I was wanting to go home before it even got dark. And again, it's January, so it got dark around 16:30.
So there you have it. Bolton = shit. It is the first place I have been to where I would actually encourage future visitors not to bother. Rochdale pisses all over Bolton, plus you can get there on the tram.
>>468641 My main issue with Bradford other than all the Joe's is how tired and run down it is. I know that white flight hasn't helped, but there's no excuse for littering down your own street.
Today I've been to Stockport. I was pleasantly surprised because I was expecting it to be a shithole but it was alright, especially the old town. It might have been because it was a Sunday but it was fairly quiet, although I don't think there is too much to do there. There were also far more crusty middle class people than I was expecting.
>>469026 I went to Stockport yesterday, to the massive Decathlon. I live in Wythenshawe so it was just a standard bike ride away. My experience was much less positive, but it's astonishing how nice all the places in between our two shitholes are. Gatley's nice, and the three or four different Cheadles are all fabulous. I think Stockport gets nicer the further uphill you go; the very centre is like the bottom of a well, but if you need to go up steps to get somewhere, it's often perfectly classy.
>>469029 I think a big part of the reason it made a positive impression on me was because I was expecting it to be on the same level as Bury or Rochdale.
Not very interestingly enough, I went to Decathlon last weekend (albeit the one in York) to pick up a new pair of walking boots.
When I was seeing a lass in Manchester she seemed to think Altrincham was the best place on earth and we would get the tram down there fairly regularly just to wander around the shops and sit in Costa for a bit. It was nice enough. Seemed just like any other not-shit suburb of an average British city to me, but maybe one to try in future.
>>468636>>468651 I left in 93, still have fond memories of what it was.
Recent visit to see family have revealed the city centre is essentially dead outside of the shopping centre, and that there are huge roads now that spew off everywhere you don't want to go.
>>468641 >I went to Bolton today. I wanted to go to Lancaster
Guess where I went today? Lancaster is lovely. The architecture is noticeably different from Manchester, the people are good-looking, there's plenty of tourist stuff, and a whole undercurrent of niche weirdness for the art hippies among usyou me. I had lunch in an independent local Chinese restaurant, it was delicious, and then I went into Lancaster City Museum, which is free and full of cool stuff about Lancaster. I found the cathedral and took a picture of it, I walked up some distressingly steep hills (like the one when you get off the train and follow the signs to "City centre" and wind up outside the castle), and even the river is huge and impressive.
This took about two hours, at which point I noticed that in addition to all the sights of Lancaster, you can also walk to Morecambe with a bit of effort, and get a free trip to the seaside alongside your beautiful architecture and museums. The distance from Lancaster to Morecambe is three and a half miles, and there's a path that starts off following the river, but then they split up and you're just walking down a country lane for nearly an hour. You can tell when you've passed the halfway point, because in addition to the plentiful signage on the path, Morecambe is fucking shit. It's vile. It is a complete dump, but then, it is a British seaside town and those are all complete hellholes. By seaside-town standards, it's actually somewhere in the middle, on a par with Blackpool but with less to do. The beach is scenic, the sea is nice, the wind is invigorating and there are many dozens of little signs for tourists to read. There's even a statue of Eric Morecambe, which you are pretty much obligated to go and find even if you aren't particularly obsessed with Morecambe and Wise. Really, the beach and sea parts are very nice - it's only the parts of Morecambe that are on land which utterly sap the soul.
All in all, Lancaster is a hilly, hipster Chester, and that's an amazing thing to be. Morecambe would arguably be worth it too if you weren't walking, and certainly if you weren't travelling from enchanting and beautiful Lancaster. This has definitely been a superior day trip.
>>469614 I have heard tell of what a lovely place Lancaster is. I actually wanted to visit it when the weather first turned pleasant, but found that a train ticket is more expensive than one to London, despite being half the time. It's two times and four times as expensive as Liverpool and Manchester respectively, which are basically the same journey times. I'm forced to assume they're trying to keep riff-raff like me out.
>>469615 Perhaps a ticket to Morecambe would be cheaper from wherever you are? Then you could get a second train for £4.20, or walk the way I went but in reverse. Seeing Lancaster gradually loom into view like a gleaming citadel as you stride away from the concrete hovels and tin beach huts would be an enviable experience indeed, like a real-life version of any of those old Dungeons & Dragons RPGs that I used to play.
>>469614 i spent most of my holidays as a child in Morecambe, up til the mid 90's. It "was" a fine place, but over the years they shut down practically everything seasidey about it. The Frontierland theme park went, and has been left a huge wasteland right on the seafront since. The concert venue gone, the water park, gone. Most of the Arcades are gone, Megazone famously burned down. They essentially shuttered the west end of town.
Heysham however, just down the road, is still lovely.
Went back for the first time in 19 years last year and nothing much had changed in comparision.
So, I did go to Southport today, even though I knew the Lawnmower Museum would be closed. It just sounded so appealing. Ignore whatever you see on train websites, though; it is a bastard to get to from Manchester and you will question your decision to go there as you wait in Bolton for 40 minutes for your connecting train.
Once you get there, though, it's basically classy Blackpool. The buildings are nice, the people are friendly, there are far fewer scrotes, and it just has a much nicer vibe. Like Chester, in a way. But I would like to complain about how many thing seemed to be closed on a Saturday in early July for a so-called tourist destination: not only does the Lawnmower Museum close at 1pm on Saturdays, like I moaned about yesterday and I wasn't willing to travel earlier because I don't actually give a shit about the history of lawnmowers and I only ever wanted to go there ironically, but Southport's big long pier was also closed, and even the main gates to the big park I found (Victoria Park) were inexplicably padlocked, even though other entrances were still open.
It's also worth noting that when you walk away from the main seafront areas, in search of novelty museums for boring objects, you rapidly find yourself in grim and shitty parts of Southport which are nowhere near as nice.
I also went out on the beach, because Southport's beach is notorious for not actually having any sea. The tide is out, but it's not just out; it's gone. I spent an hour wandering around the beach, and it felt like a polar. I never saw the sea, and at one point I noticed an RNLI-branded pickup truck following me at a distance, so I must have gone quite a way out. But as an experience, it's downright unique and I recommend it to anyone - you can close your eyes and just walk around with your eyes shut, and when you open them again it's like you haven't moved because everywhere looks the same. You can't hear anything because of the wind, there's nobody around, there are no landmarks, and it's some proper Lawrence of Arabia shit if you let your mind wander while you're out there. I doubt Lawrence of Arabia was surrounded by an infinite expanse of razor shells, however, and his sand will definitely have been drier.
I have a friend who's from Southport, and I asked her for some tips on what to do while I was there. Rather than venture out on a spiritual quest on Southport's beach, she recommended I should go to Formby, which has impressive sand dunes and can be reached via local Merseyrail train. Formby as a place is, frankly, fucking dull. You get off the train and you have to walk past some admittedly palatial homes for a good half an hour until you even reach sand. My advice, personally, is not to bother, but the sand dunes are very nice once you get there. They're a real pain to walk up, but that adds to the experience, and the seaside beyond the dunes even has the actual sea in it. So that's where it went. There's also a place in the woods where red squirrels apparently still live, but by this point I just wanted to go home again.
My phone battery was going to go flat while I was out as well, so I switched it off and that ruined my step-count for the day. But I was up to 27,000, so there's definitely plenty of walking to be done if that's what you're into. Oh, and I saw an adorable baby deer out of the train window on the way home, somewhere near Wigan.
But they have an actual national lawnmower museum, and they fucking closed it when it should be at its busiest. And the fish and chips I had for lunch were pretty horrible too. Nevertheless, Southport still gets a thumbs-up from me overall.
I also forgot to mention that Southport is a suspiciously fantastic place to buy a second-hand Rolex watch. I probably saw 5-10 shops selling them. Even the Cash Converters had a couple in the window.
>>471169 I didn't; I very nearly did but I saw on the door that it was "Families Only", and I was on my own, so I decided not to have people think I was a paedo and I just walked round the streets some more.
Also, who are this Silcock family that own everything? The entire seafront seemingly belongs to Silcock's. Silcock's Arcade, Silcock's Fish & Chips, Silcock's everything. It's a very niche monopoly to own all the tourist buildings on a couple of streets in Southport and be totally unknown otherwise.
I once went to southport with mental slav ex. It was on one of the hottest days of the year back in '22 or '23, I think. The walk down the pier was so exhausting (and her blood alcohol level was getting dangerously low for a czech) so we had to stop half way for a beer. That beach when the tide is out really is bewildering, it's like fucking Tatooine.
In hindsight it's very thoughtful of them to put a little cafe at exactly that spot. They must make a killing the two or three days a year it's warm enough to tempt anyone to venture there. On the whole I thought it was a shithole, like most of our coastal towns, but one with an even more of a tragic resignation about it, that it used to be something a lot more dignified. I felt the ghost of a town like Harrogate by the sea, once upon a time.
Yesterday was my first visit to the Lake District, well the edge of it. I did proper touristy shit, like getting the steam train from Haverthwaite to Lakeside and then a boat trip along Lake Windermere to Bowness, followed by exploring a few other places in the area.
Unsurprisingly, Bowness was a massive tourist trap. It was filled with boomers who aren't aware of the concept of walking single file when there's people coming in the opposite direction, and very ugly Chinese tourists. The other places I went to were alright, but the person showing me around was expecting me to get blown away by the Lake District but it didn't seem anything special; we did Pendle Hill the day before and I much preferred that.
If I went again I'd go rambling rather than visiting the attractions around the lakes, but I don't see any compelling reason to go there over the likes of the Yorkshire Dales or Peak District.
Wells, Somerset, is absolutely incredible. It's like Bath, but older, posher, and nicer. And the water from the eponymous wells means that the sides of the high street have two special gutters with water permanently flowing down them, which is quite the unique selling point in the height of summer when the rest of the country has yellow grass and drought warnings.
If you're in Shrewsbury, go to the indoor market, and on the lower of the two floors find the Indian food place. Their vegetable samosas are the best thing I've ever eaten and cost a whole £1.20. Last time I went to Shrewsbury a flurry of emergency vehicles raced by me on my way back to the train station, and an air ambulance was landing not too far away as I waited at the station, all because some poor mixed up lad had launched himself off the multistory. Mark my words, that wouldn't have happened if he'd known about those samosas.
>>471895 >Wells, Shrewsbury
>open market
I really need to move somewhere for this. My open air market consists of 2 stalls, one artisan and overpriced bread, another .. I think cheese? There's just no point.
>>471905 I was presently suprised by Shrewsbury's market. My experience of indoor markets where I live is shite clothes, cheap toys and things for dogs. I even thought sarcastically to myself something along the lines of "I wonder how shit this will be" before entering, only to be proven completely and totally wrong. It had a fish monger, butcher, more than half-a-dozen places to eat, and was full of people. The only eatery that looked dead was a cafe/bar on the top floor charging a tenner for "giant corn" and selling "paninos", which I looked up and is just a redundent name for a panini. Might be a sleeper hit, who knows.
