Coronation Street..........

Before I start telling you about our trip to Italy I must tell you about our day out yesterday, touring the original set of the dearly loved and longest running soap in Britain, first broadcast on December 9th 1960 - Coronation Street.      If you are thinking of doing the Coronation Street Tour yourself then don't read this, you can have your own experience and see it all for real, I can thoroughly recommend it.

This original set, on Quay Street in Manchester, has now been abandoned in favour of a brand new purpose built set at Media City in Salford and is only open to tourists until the end of this year, after which it will be demolished and the land sold off, so we just had to go see a piece of Northern Television History.

The tour started in the studios, unfortunately photographs were not allowed but you can see some here, though we did take a sneaky one of the real life BAFTA Coronation Street received in 2012.

 We were shown the different dressed sets for the various interiors of the houses of the residents of Coronation Street, and it was explained how the sets changed depending on what was being filmed.  On each of the sets was a video showing scenes of the residents of the various houses and it was fascinating to see the familiar furniture in the front rooms,  though it all looks so much smaller than it does on TV.    

We were, however allowed in the Rovers Return.

Here we are behind the bar

Then it was out the back door into the yard.

 Then into the Street

To visit No1 Ken & Dierdre and No 3 Emily & Norris, and the back of No 1 the extension.

No 5 Chesney & Sinead, No 7 Dev Alahan No 9 Tyrone & Fiz and No 11 Eileen

No 13 Sophie Webster and Maddie Heath.

Last on the row the Corner Shop, currently owned by Dev.

The back alley.

At the end of the street is The Bistro

 Across the road we visited the Kabin

Websters' Auto Centre

Underworld (aka the knicker factory)

Round the corner back onto Coronation Street and No 8 Gail McIntyre's. While MWM rang the bell at the front door I sneaked round the back to have a look at the garden.

 Then I went next door to Anna's No.6. but she wasn't in.

 If you want to know who lived in these properties previously with a brief history see here.

Audrey's Salon wasn't open either

so I sat on the bench outside for a while but she didn't arrive.

The plaque on the bench is dedicated to Maxine Peacock, Ashley's first wife and hairdresser at the salon.

Then we went round the corner on to Rosamund Street to see the viaduct,

 Looking up Rosamund Street from the viaduct.

 the medical centre and chip shop,

Barlow's  Buys,

 The bus stop and Street Cars.

Just round the corner is Victoria Street, the home to the kebab shop, Roy's Rolls and what was Elliott's Butchers shop.

On the opposite side of the Street is Tina McIntyre's flat and the builder's yard,

 **SPOILER ALERT** If you're not up to date with what's happened in the last couple of months on Corrie don't read any further!

where Tina met her death when she was pushed from the balcony by Rob Donovan,  but having survived the fall he battered her with a lead pipe and she died in hospital.

Map of Coronation Street and surrounding area here.

We thoroughly enjoyed our tour of Coronation Street and the studios, it was really interesting and fascinating to see the actual set we have watched for so many years on TV.     Hope you enjoyed the tour, if you read it.

Canada Part 8.....

Well here we are on the final part of our Canada trip from last year, sorry it's taken so long.

On our full free day to explore Victoria we decided to do it in style and see it from the air on a float plane!

Here we are down at the harbour getting ready to board the plane.

 This is me getting on board, you can see the plane isn't very large.

This is inside the plane, it was tiny, with 10 passengers!

I have to say, as someone who doesn't do heights very well, this ride, being in such a small plane, was just a tad scary for me and although I enjoyed the scenery I was glad when we finally touched down.
Here's MWM having just alighted the plane

and our pilot.

 Here's a short video of part of the journey.

Once we landed (and I got my landlegs back) we made our way along the jetty and found a fisherman gutting his catch to the delight of a harbour seal, which we caught on video.

Then it was time to wander round beautiful Victoria and take in the sights,

before popping in one of the many bar/restaurants for a light lunch.

After lunch we found a very interesting place where we found a photograph of some long lost Canadian relatives - A Mountie and Pocahontas!

It was time to go back to the hotel to pack up in readiness for heading to the airport the following morning.   After packing, we had a short rest before freshening up to enjoy a nice meal in Bartholemew's English style pub/restaurant, which is attached to the hotel.  They also sold a good selection of real ales and had live music!  Here's the selection of ales on offer.

We found Victoria a charming and beautiful place and thoroughly enjoyed our stay, then morning arrived and we, reluctantly, had to leave for the journey back to the airport in Vancouver and commence our journey home.

This was our last view of The Rockies as our plane took us back to the UK.

I hope you enjoyed our Canada trip, please join me next time when I will tell you about our trip to Italy last month, when we visited Venice and Verona amongst other places.

Canada Part 7

We have just returned from a week in Italy but before I tell you about that I really must finish telling you about our Canada trip from last September!

Day 8 found us driving to Tsawwassen to take the ferry, through the glorious gulf islands region with towering Douglas fir trees climbing the hills on all sides to Swartz Bay, to Vancouver Island and the last stop on our adventure, the capital of British Columbia, Victoria. Named after Queen Victoria of the UK and, at the time,British North America, Victoria is one of the oldest cities in the Pacific Northwest, with British settlement beginning in 1843.

Our first stop was The Butchart Gardens where we spent a couple of hours, while our courier and driver took our luggage to the hotel and booked is in.

The Butchart Gardens covers more than 55 acres of a 130 acre estate.  It began from an idea Jennie Butchart had to beautify the worked-out limestone quarry which had supplied her husband Robert Pim Butchart's nearby Portland cement plant.

The gardens, through the skillful mixture of rare and exotic shrubs, treas and flowers, often collected by the Butcharts during their extensive world travels, continually expanded over the years to become the world famous Sunken, Japanese, Rose, Italian and Medtierranean gardens you can see today.

The hospitable Butcharts christened their estate "Benvenuto" - Italian for "Welcome".  By the 1920s more than fifty thousand people visited each year.

Today the gardens, still owned and operated by the family, continues the horticulural excellence and welcoming traditions of Jennie Butchart.  In 2004 the gardens, in bloom for 100 years, was designated a National Historic Site of Canada.

The gardens are truly breathtaking and I would urge you, if you ever get the opportunity, to visit them yourself to take in the beauty.

Our driver took a detour on the way to our hotel to show us Mile 0, where a remarkable young man, Terry Fox, began his 'Marathon of Hope' running across Canada raising money for Cancer Research.  If you don't know the story of Terry Fox please click on the picture of the memorial plaque and read about this amazing young man.

 We eventually reached our hotel right in the centre of Victoria, here's a photograph taken from our bedroom window.

 After unpacking we had a rest before getting freshened up and changed to go out for something eat,

but before eating we walked around a little to get our bearings and take some picture of the famous
Empress Hotel, one of the oldest and most famous hotels in Victoria. Located on Government Street facing the inner harbour, the Empress has become an iconic symbol for the city itself. It has been designated a National Historic Site of Canada due to its national significance.

The Parliament Buildings looked magnificent too, all lit up. The Neo-baroque buildings face north on Belleville street facing the Inner Harbour and diagonally across from the Empress Hotel. A statue of Queen Victoria stands on the front lawn as well a statue of a soldier to commemorate the province's World War I, World War II and Korean War dead. Atop the central dome is a gold-covered statue of Captain George Vancouver.

Join me next time for our float plane ride video and pictures, and to see a photograph of our Canadian Ancestors!