Sunday, 24th August      IRELAND - WALES - ENGLAND

Robyn writes: Well, it's been a much bigger than usual moving day, but thankfully it has all gone very smoothly and we arrived even earlier than we'd dared to hope! We are now in Liverpool, home of the Fab Four and Ferry Cross the Mersey and so far it seems like a lovely city. I feel a bit like I'm trapped in an episode of "The Liver Birds"! (A seventies comedies other Baby Boomers may remember too.)

We managed to sleep reasonably well despite the partying Dubliners downstairs. Irritatingly, I was awake for quite a while after they'd finished and there was actual silence! The day started horribly early at 6.25 with our wakeup call in the Arlington Hotel, and we were promptly up and dressed and finishing our packing, before lugging everything downstairs. Luckily we were nice and early, as our taxi, booked for 7.30, actually turned up at 7.15, so we were soon whisked off through the streets of Dublin to the port and by 7.30 we were walking through the door of the ferry terminal. We travelled with Irish Ferries as they had the ferry and train deal - ninety-six pounds for both of us to travel from Dublin to Holyhead then on the train to Liverpool.

Booking in proved thankfully easy (you can never be quite sure when you've booked online, but this was great) and we had soon handed our big ports over and were waiting upstairs. Our ferry left at 8.45 so around quarter past we were rounded up, put onto shuttle buses and driven right out to the ferry where we walked in through the huge back entrance for cars and buses and up into the boat. It's the biggest boat we've ever been on. We then found a table for two in the huge seating area and settled in for the two hour voyage. It passed very quickly - we got some food, read books, ventured out onto the top deck occasionally to have our hair blasted into madness, and chatted to the nice bloke next to us with his three kids. Before we knew it, Wales hove into view and we were coming into the port at Holyhead. All of the bus and car passengers disappeared to their vehicles, and we foot passengers waited patiently for about twenty minutes before we were shepherded out onto shuttle buses again and driven up to the Irish Ferries terminal. We collected our bags from the carousel and headed in the direction of the train.

The passenger deck on the ferry - very spacious with cafes etc

Goodbye to Ireland...

...hello to Holyhead in Wales

Our ferry, the Dublin Swift

Fortunately, this was right next door! We walked straight onto the platform, showed our train ticket and were directed onto the next platform where we discovered a train was leaving in five minutes, so we hopped in, stowed our bags and found seats. Easy! The train left right on time and we really enjoyed the scenic trip along the top of Wales. A lot of the time we were running right along the seaside, which was lovely. And we saw a lot of sheep and mountains, both of which Wales excels in. We had to change at Chester, so again we wrestled our bags off the train and asked our very nice conductor where to go. He pointed us just around the corner (no stairs to lug bags on - yay!) and we arrived to find that once more, our train was only minutes away. So once more we got on, commandeered four seats together with our luggage (no luggage racks on this one) and we were off again. This was a Merseyside commuter train with about 10 stops on the way into Lime Street, which is our closest train station, where we arrived a bit before half past two. Amazing, as we'd thought we we'd get in at about 4. We just had a really good run with our transport. Even better, Lime Street has a lift, so we didn't have to haul our ports up and down stairs, as sooo often happens in UK railway stations!

Then we hopped into a taxi and were soon at our accommodation for the next five nights at Premier Apartments. Here we seem to have hit the jackpot as, after having paid for a one bedroom apartment, we have a two level, two bedroom apartment on the top floor with a balcony! I keep waiting for the knock on the door to say they've made a mistake....anyway, in the meantime, we are nicely settled. It is so good to have our own space again, and the views from here are stunning.

Lovely Welsh coastal scenery

Great views from the balcony of our apartment in Liverpool

Closeup of the cathedral behind me, which we're planning to visit. A stunning looking building.

By now we were starving, having existed on muesli bars for lunch, so we grabbed our shopping bags and headed out to look for lunch and groceries. We are very close to the city centre here, so only three blocks away we found a shopping centre with a "Yates" restaurant next door (I don't think it's the seed company). They are a bit like a Weatherspoons in that they had some great meal deals - we got two curries with rice, naan and puppadum and a pot of tea each for nine pounds all up. Very impressive, and we were soon not starving! Vastly refreshed, we headed off for the nearby Tesco - only a little 'Metro' one but big enough for us to find meals for the next couple of days, so we are nicely stocked up. Then we headed home to put the groceries, admire the view (threatening rain but so far it's held off), read the tourist information and maps and flop in a heap for a while.

By six o'clock we were nowhere near ready for tea after such a late lunch, so Lex, inspired by his research, headed out to see the docks. I declined to go walking, put my feet up and got on with the weekly letter to my class and the blog instead. It will be a late tea tonight. However, we're just thrilled to have made it here so easily and it looks like Liverpool has so much to offer. Yeah, yeah, yeah!

The Liver Building, and those two birds on top are Liver Birds!

The near docks area is full of interesting things to look at!

Old dock buildings now high end apartments with water views!