UK, Part One!

I guess I can’t just say Scotland, since the first leg of our trip was to Manchester England! Here’s the first installment of the Scotland/UK photos. John is still sorting through them. I was pleasantly surprised by the Manchester part of the trip. I knew that we would enjoy seeing Humphrey & Helen again, since they are delightful people, but I didn’t expect to be so captivated by Manchester and their little corner of England. Here are eleventy billion photos of our two days there.

Our first day, we took a walking tour of much of Manchester. The architecture, museums, shops, and restaurants are quite lovely and interesting. Here we are by the waterfront.

And Helen & I in front of the Lowry, a gorgeous complex that includes a performance hall, theaters, restaurants, and shops.

More of the local architecture:

That’s a plaque in a local hotel that commemorates where Mr. Rolls met Mr. Royce, and they agreed to do business together.

That’s the town hall building, on Albert Square. Here are a couple from inside the building.

We saw two lovely old libraries in the city. The first is part of a music boarding school, the Chetham library. It was magnificent. This is the oldest public library in the English speaking world.

Here’s a photo from the second library, the John Rylands Library, also splendid:

We stepped into the Museum of Science & Industry just for a few minutes, to see two things. The first was a replica of the first computer, developed at the University of Manchester. It was named Baby.

The second was one of the first mechanical spinning machines. Manchester of course was made wealthy due to the cotton industry, so this would have spun cotton.

Last but not least was Castlefield, the site of an ancient Roman ruin. The outlines of the fort walls are seen in the background here.

Books, computers, architecture, spinning…what can I say? Humphrey and Helen know us well!

The second day was an outdoor day. We explored the area outside Manchester, which is lovely.

There are many public walking paths throughout this part of England.

A highlight of the day was a trip to Lyme Park, which was stunning. This is the place that I mentioned yesterday where Pride & Prejudice was filmed. The grounds and buildings are gorgeous.

And I found my very own Mr. Darcy.

And here we are at the end of the day with our friends:

Enough for one day! The next step of the trip takes us to Scotland, and Edinburgh!