Chester (#32)
A simple day trip from Manchester. Having worked for some time in Chester I appreciate the unique shopping infrastructure: there are tiered wooden buildings with galleries of shops in them. The centre is alright, and generally very busy. The walls (having been supported by tolls levied on people travelling through the area during a period when most towns' walls were being removed for precious building materials, and having gained antiquity/historical value by the time the remit for toll-collection was repealed) are comprehensive and tie the area together well. The very local racecourse is convenient, and alters the entire feel of the city during race days. The river front is very pleasant and, although more populated during Summer, had a number of rowers training on it. The city works, is busy, and hasn't been comprehensively disrupted by new buildings. Down sides: outside the immediate city centre can be a little utilitarian and pay-only cathedral. Overall good.
Bradford (#33)
Lessons are learned almost every day. The main education I received by getting the train to Leeds and immediately walking from the station to Bradford and back was that it was a bad idea. Having no proper map to follow, and misled by the conniving roads between the two cities, the original 18 miles round trip became something like 24 miles. Bradford itself was a pretty ugly place. It has stone furniture in the "German Quarter," a large town hall and very little else. Apparently it's a "City of Film." The cathedral has no through access to the city: there is a sign to indicate this, do not ignore the sign. There are lots of unnecessary underpasses that forebode unwanted physical harm. It is not a place I would want to visit again, and I certainly find it completely unnecessary to walk there. The act of walking to (and from) Bradford involves many unfortunate and seemingly unavoidable detours, as well as self-inflicted unwanted physical harm. The price of a train ticket, in hindsight, is not worth saving.
This is the walk, including a huge detour to Tong on the way to Bradford (lower route), and a minor excusion to Bramley on the way back:
Leeds (#34)
The plan was to walk to Wakefield and back, as well as "doing" Leeds, the day after the Bradford walking debacle. Crippling pain enjoyed by all party members ensured that (crap) idea was rapidly jettisoned in favour of a new, streamlined concept: do Leeds, then get the train to Wakefield and back, before returning to Manchester. Leeds is alright really. The shopping area has a few interesting arcades, and is mostly pedestrianised (as places commonly are nowadays). The town hall area is quite cool, with big golden owls and really stupid tacked-on golden clocks (the architectural adornment equivalent of two full sovereign rings on one hand - see dart players' non-throwing hands for details). The museum isn't awful, with a nice statue of Circe by Drury, and the city feels fairly vibrant. It's a bit like Manchester a few years ago, with hints of Glasgow (especially around with the station/river at the bottom and grid-patterny roads). It seems to be a night-out sort of town, which is alright.
Wakefield (#35)
The train arrived at Westgate station, which was fortunate, because if it had arrived at Kirkgate station I wouldn't have alighted. The Kirkgate area is the most horrible place I've ever been to in my life. The station looked like it was managed by Smackhead Rail. On the ill-thought-through walk from the centre to Kirkgate station a man tried to sell me a gold watch in a car-park. Around Westgate was alright, but the rest of Wakefield was a huge disappointment. I do not recommend visiting this place, unless you desire the cheapest haircut available to man. I walked past a series of barbers advertising £3 gents haircuts. There is a pictureque bridge on the postcards in the Tourist Office (I know!) but in reality, the bridge spanned an awful river from one industrial site to another, parallelled closely by a very unattractive concrete road bridge. Don't go to Wakefield.
Statistics:
England 30/50
Scotland 3/6
Wales 2/5
NI 0/5
TOTAL 35/66
