My friend Anthony asked me specifically to tell him about my recent visit to Leicester, of which he has some fond memories from a visit many years ago.
We found Leicester a quiet city that we could unkindly describe as having "seen better days" as it has a good collection of fine buildings that date back to the industrial boom years of early 20th century or even earlier, a time when the midlands and northern England were the manufacturing power house of Great Britain.
Today Leicester is well known for its football team that performed well unexpectedly, but more deservedly for the remarkable discovery of the remains of Richard III under a car park. These two attractions are giving a badly needed boost to the local economy.. For us, we will never forget Kayal, the Keralan restaurant that produced dishes that could easily match any Indian restaurants that we have ever been to. After all, Leicester boasts of a large percentage of residents of Indian ancestry.
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| Pedestrian mall covers a large part of Leicester CBD. |
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| The Clock Tower |
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| The XY Club, whatever that is. |
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| Town Hall |
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| Leicester Cathedral |
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| Final resting place of King Richard III. |
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| Keralan meal. My dosa was half eaten before we remembered the camera. |
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| Leicester market place. |
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Thanks for posting the photos of Leicester. You're right that the building style (tudor/religious) are reminescent of old Britain. The city looks rather quiet and more walking malls for pedestrains rather than for motor traffic. I missed the parts of the City that you covered, as I was confined more to the countryside where Leicester University was located and the connection/sideways to the Railway Station during my sojourn there.
ReplyDeleteGlad to learn that delicious Indian cuisine can be found there, and that the Football team is keeping the City's flag high, and to think that they are able to discover the remains of Richard III there and under a carpark! From UL's newletter, I read that the university is into cutting-edge Research work like space exploration.
Thanks for posting the photos of Leicester. You're right that the building style (tudor/religious) are reminescent of old Britain. The city looks rather quiet and more walking malls for pedestrains rather than for motor traffic. I missed the parts of the City that you covered, as I was confined more to the countryside where Leicester University was located and the connection/sideways to the Railway Station during my sojourn there.
ReplyDeleteGlad to learn that delicious Indian cuisine can be found there, and that the Football team is keeping the City's flag high, and to think that they are able to discover the remains of Richard III there and under a carpark! From UL's newletter, I read that the university is into cutting-edge Research work like space exploration.
Thanks for the comments. The University is located on the edge of the town centre, we passed by it on the way to the old city walls and Roman ruins. We travelled to Leicester from London by a fast train that took just an hour, and we stayed close to the railway station, so know the place well!
DeleteOne trap one should know about train travel in UK (and we travelled a lot by train this time) - book tickets online in advance especially if the trip is to or from London. We were warned, so we booked London-Leicester online costing us just 17 pounds one way. However we forgot to do so returning to London and when we fronted up to the train station on the morning, the fare was 58 pounds EACH. We were in a poor bargaining position.
There is a space science centre in town, which we did not visit.