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Jun. 1st, 2004
More cities
Jun. 1st, 2004 07:59 pmChester was a bit of a disappointment: the Dewa Roman Experience seems to have taken little save the smell-canisters and the structure of its name from the Jorvik Viking Museum, the walls were Georgian re-modellings, and the straight streets of the Roman camp were lined with the same chain-shops as anywhere else. So, hastily, away from the haunt of the commuting stockbroker and off to Manchester.
The sun shone, turquoise contrast with the terracotta of the bricks; the hostel is by the inner-city docks, a canal flows outside and two minutes' walk takes you to the Museum of Science and Industry. I only saw one building's-worth of its five; they had the suite of equipment from a cotton-mill, and made calico (three inches a minute) as you watched; I wondered why the beautiful bright-printed cottons seemed all destined to go to Africa, leaving bland monochrome pastels for my disdain in M&S.
Monday morning, on the tram to Salford, for vaster docks where huge blocks of expensive flats were sprouting from the waterfront; another fine place to amble. The Imperial War Museum was a disappointment, the aggressively assertive building and the sparse collection combining into a tediously didactic experience; the Lowry was more fun, I was the only person on the guided architectural tour, and able to ask all sorts of questions about how the huge theatres worked.
It was all-around post-industrial splendour; maybe the weather was exceptionally kind, but it felt as if the reputation of the cities was stuck in the Fifties while the cities themselves were hurtling (backed by the burghers of Hamburg and Turin; more EU-funded projects than you could shake a stick at) into the C21.
The sun shone, turquoise contrast with the terracotta of the bricks; the hostel is by the inner-city docks, a canal flows outside and two minutes' walk takes you to the Museum of Science and Industry. I only saw one building's-worth of its five; they had the suite of equipment from a cotton-mill, and made calico (three inches a minute) as you watched; I wondered why the beautiful bright-printed cottons seemed all destined to go to Africa, leaving bland monochrome pastels for my disdain in M&S.
Monday morning, on the tram to Salford, for vaster docks where huge blocks of expensive flats were sprouting from the waterfront; another fine place to amble. The Imperial War Museum was a disappointment, the aggressively assertive building and the sparse collection combining into a tediously didactic experience; the Lowry was more fun, I was the only person on the guided architectural tour, and able to ask all sorts of questions about how the huge theatres worked.
It was all-around post-industrial splendour; maybe the weather was exceptionally kind, but it felt as if the reputation of the cities was stuck in the Fifties while the cities themselves were hurtling (backed by the burghers of Hamburg and Turin; more EU-funded projects than you could shake a stick at) into the C21.