We
tried to visit Egypt during this Easter. But
the attempt turned futile as the flight tickets
to that country proved to be an expensive
affair. So, we thought of restricting ourselves
to Europe and were trying to visit Spain &
Portugal. But then, the UK Home Office took
their own sweet time to process our Visa extension,
thereby resulting in our Passport getting
locked up with them. So, we were left with
no option but to find a place to visit, where
no one would ask for Passports. The answer
lay among the clutter of islands near Great
Britain and Ireland. Finally, 'Isle of Man'
among others not due to any extensive study
on all these choices, but purely out of chance.
Thankfully, we didn't have to regret over
that. 
When I told that we would be
going to Isle of Man during Easter, not many,
barring the locals knew about the place. Though
I have heard about the place, I had had no
idea where that island is. Further, I didn't
think that it is an independent nation. If
you get an e-mail from someone whose address
ends with ".im", don't be puzzled, where the
mail has come from. Indeed, it has come from
a person at Isle of Man. It is a tiny island
nation in the Irish Sea lying between British
Mainland & Ireland (See map). Without giving
any further thought, we proceeded with the
travel arrangements for going to that island
nation.
Five of us (Ganesan, Hari, Jatin,
Benjy & I) started early in the morning on
the 'Good Friday' day. Thanks to a lovely
offer from Virgin Trains, we proceeded from
London to Liverpool in the First class. Reaching
Liverpool at around 11 A.M, we had the rest
of the day to explore Liverpool since the
ferry towards the island starts at 6:30 P.M.
The train station at Liverpool itself is housed
in one of the magnificent buildings. Just
opposite to the station stood another huge,
breathtaking building called St. George's
Hall. I don't know the purpose for which
the building is being used now, but simply
admired at the magnificence.
We started in our usual way
of seeing the city through the lens. J We
muddled our way to the Tourist Information
Centre and found a city tour bus that took
us all around Liverpool. The entire town of
Liverpool had huge, old, Victorian style buildings
scattered all along. In one of the narrow
arterial roads of the city, there was one
high-rise 'India Buildings', which
houses the Immigration Office of UK Government.
The bus took us to the dock area, where the
'Royal Liver Buildings' stand. The
building was opened in the early 20th century
and was the first large scale building in
the world to be made of reinforced concrete.
It is distinguished by the two clock towers,
upon which rest the famous mythical Liver
Birds.
In the same row where the Liver
Buildings stand, there were many huge, old
buildings of 19th Century. Notable among them
was the 'Port of Liverpool' building,
distinguished by its beautiful copper dome.
Our guide in the bus told that inside the
building, there is a marbled entrance hall
with compass points on the floor giving true
North and South. (Don't know what does 'TRUE'
North & South means! J) We were also told
that the great majority of the docks system
is administered from this building now.
Then, the bus took us down to
Canadian Boulevard. Sixty maple trees
gifted by the Canadian Government to commemorate
the co-operation between Liverpool City and
Canada lined up the avenue. We proceeded to
a place called 'Albert Dock', which
is one of the landmarks of the city. For reasons,
that I couldn't comprehend, it is being billed
up as Liverpool's top heritage attraction
and a stunning architectural triumph. As Liverpool
is the hometown of Beatles, there is one Beatles
museum at the Albert Dock. We didn't have
enough time to visit that though. All the
shops selling souvenirs & gifts had something
on Beatles, quite obviously!
There was this Chinatown which
had a beautifully decorated arch (certainly
no match for any arch erected for Jayalalithaa
back home! ).
The bus went past one of the important cathedrals.
The Cathedral is one of the largest in the
world surpassed only by St. Peter's in Rome.
The architect, whose design was accepted in
an open competition, was just 21 years of
age. Somewhere near the cathedral was the
place where a man was accidentally killed
by a running train in 1800s. What would appear
as a trivial piece of information has an interesting
piece of information hidden in it. That man
had come there to inaugurate the train line
at that point and without his knowledge stepped
into the track after the train started moving.
This was the World's first recorded train
accident. (Tourism is all about marketing.
One would get to know how these Brits hype
up things and market all and sundry. )
(........To be continued)
