There’s a Guardian newspaper article entitled “Let’s move to Lancaster, Lancashire: it’s grander than you might think” that is admittedly 6 years old now; but I can’t help thinking that “what you might think” is actually more accurate. Even the Guardian article notes that “recent developments and buildings don’t live up to the city’s heritage”. The student accommodation is exemplary of this. 

Another article I found that extolled the virtues of the city’s main attractions highlighted Costa coffee and how easy it is to get out of the city to places people want to see, like the Lake District.

As we walked into the centre of town today, I had mentioned to Mark that I wouldn’t mind having a look in either a sports shop or a second hand shop for another T-shirt I could use on this trip. Within the space of about 5 metres there were two cheap sports shops and three second hand shops. They were vying for our attention with the vape shops, Greggs bakery, CEX second hand electronics shop and convenience stores selling “fruit flavoured” drinks. I refuse to believe any of these drinks have ever been near a fruit….

….and in the bottom right hand corner, this bubble gum flavoured thing shouldn’t be a drink at all.

The day started really well. Unbelievably well, as you can imagine how giddy I was to see these four (4) bottles in the shower:

None of the dispensers really worked though, so I just had to pump the conditioner 60 times to get enough to use on my hair. It’s been a somewhat depressing allegory for Lancaster as a whole. You have to work very hard to find its beauty spots.

The route out of Tewitfield towards Lancaster took us along the Lancaster canal, which also started very prettily.

But this is clearly not a living, breathing canal like the one at home in Bath with boats going backwards and forwards every day through the summer.

Even the gloves are shadows of their Scottish counterparts….

It’s not as though this place is lacking in history either. Quite the opposite. Tourist information raves about Lancaster castle, which is visible as soon as you enter from the north, rising above the Sainsbury’s express and Aldi supermarkets.

Most notably, although the phrase “War of the Roses” was coined long after the event, the heraldic red rose of Lancaster is associated with King Henry VII. He famously defeated Richard III of York, who sported the white rose. Upon defeating Richard in 1487 and marrying Elizabeth of York, Henry united both houses and roses into the wildly successful “House of Targaryen Tudor”.

Normally, this is the moment I would say, “wow, if this is the House that won, what did the loser end up looking like?” York, however, is described online as “a vibrant festival city with Roman roots and a Viking past“. The 14th century Shambles street is apparently the inspiration for Diagon Ally in Harry Potter and the award winning interactive Yorvik museum is considered one of the world’s best. It’s one of my earliest memories, being in a little carriage drawn through the heritage centre with the smells of ancient Britain piped through to the tourists to enhance the experience.

The city of Lancaster in the meantime has thrived on slavery, which it finally acknowledged in 2005 with a memorial. It too smells of ancient Britain, with one WiFi hotspot available from our pub/hotel being tagged as “smellsofpoo”. 

To be fair, tonight, we are staying outside of Lancaster in Garstang, famous for its blue cheese. On a menu this large, who will win the sweepstake for the number of items that include Garstang cheese?

If you chose “one” you are a winner. I will give anyone a point if they said “two” as you can have a blue cheese sauce added to anything, and that is also made with Garstang blue cheese. I decided to make the sauce the star of the show and chose the starter of salt and pepper chicken with sour cream, sriracha, spring and crispy onions: a kind of Lancashire buffalo wings, if you like.

Apart from the absence of salt, pepper, sour cream, sriracha, spring or crispy onions, it was fine. That is the faint praise with which I will damn the blue cheese sauce. I might as well have ordered soba noodles to go with it (see day 27).

Distance – back in time – too far to tell.  By walking on tiny pavements all afternoon rather than trusting Strava’s original route (see yesterday’s post) we shaved 1km off Strava’s estimate to land on 32.37km.