UK Roadtrip: Chester and Anglesey

Thought I'd better start early (if having been home for three days still qualifies as early?) with showing some holiday photos. I usually leave it pretty late and I still haven't posted all the pictures I wanted to show from the Maldives or our holiday in the US last year. Call to self for improvement!

As you may remember we decided to spend a week in the UK while we'd be there for my friend James's wedding. The wedding was held in/around Northallerton in Yorkshire, a part of the UK neither of us had never visited before, so we decided to fly in and out of Manchester and then make a "loop" north and back south from there. Our first stop was Chester, a pretty town outside Manchester (we didn't feel we had to see Manchester particularly, besides I've been there before, albeit very briefly for a Spice Girls concert...), where we stayed at a cute little B&B called Mitchells of Chester. We arrived around dinner time so after a quick check-in and inspection of our nice room...


...we walked to town (max 15 min walk through a residential area with pretty brick houses) for some sightseeing and food (Italian chain restaurant Piccolino that I can also recommend).

Chester has a number of medieval buildings, although some of them are Victorian restorations, and many remnants from the Romans who once founded the city. It also has one of best preserved city walls in the UK.


Chester has something unique for Britain apparently. The so-called "rows" consist of buildings with shops or dwellings on the lowest two storeys (hopefully illustrated by the photo below). The shops on street-level are entered directly from the street (or are even a few steps below street level) whilst the ones on the first floor are entered behind a continuous walkway.


In addition to the rows, Chester's most famous landmark is probably the Eastgate Clock, said to be the most photographed clock in the UK after Big Ben.

We had planned to visit more of Chester the next day, but thanks to that wonderful modern phenomenon that is Facebook, my friend K. (originally from South Africa but living in the UK since ten years) saw that I was in Chester (thanks to another wonderful modern toy, the iPhone, and the app Gowalla, which enables you to log where you are and link it up to FB), and quickly sent me a message saying she and her husband N. and their six-month-old daughter I. were in Wales, only about an hour's drive from Chester. I had known that were going to be in Wales and I had meant to e-mail her our intinerary but I had neither realised how close Wales was to Chester (duh! as Chester borders Wales) nor had got around to sending her our plans before we took off. K. asked "do you really want to drive all the way here, I know you have a lot of driving ahead of you?!" but how could we not go and see them when they were so close! So after breakfast we set off through the worst downpour I have experienced for years and were soon reconnected with great friends that we haven't seen for almost two years! And we also got to meet little I. for the first time! After hanging out at the house (N's parents' house in Anglesey, the north Welsh-speaking part of Wales) for a while, the rain stopped and the sun came out and we headed to the little town of Beaumaris (which I have visited before back in 1998 or 1999).

N. and I enter Beaumaris Castle

Mandatory group shot, sans Peter who had to stay behind the camera

Peter connects with I.

Beaumaris beach and pier

I'm quite proud of this "catch"! :)

Next post will be about Yorkshire!