Coventry

I decided to have a little adventure yesterday, so I hopped on a train and went to Coventry, a city north of London near Birmingham. It's renowned for its cathedral and university, and because it was heavily bombed during World War II, much of the inner city has been rebuilt in a modern style.

Although I wanted to see the cathedral, I must confess my primary reason for going to Coventry was much less highbrow:
 

Fans of the TV show "Keeping Up Appearances" will recognize the house on the left as that of Hyacinth and Richard Bucket, and the one on the right as the home of their neighbors Elizabeth and Emmet. These houses in a suburb of Coventry were used for exterior filming for the series. Hyacinth's house, you may have noticed, has been added on to -- her front room has been extended toward the street.

I texted a picture to Dave, and he said, "I can see the Royal Warrant!"

I texted back, "I had to run away before she made me take coffee on her Royal Doulton with the hand-painted periwinkles!"

Then I went to visit Onslow and Daisy in their council house (second from left). It's been spiffed up since the TV show, and their street now ends in a little park. I think when Hyacinth and Richard used to park their car in the cul-de-sac it was just surrounded by brambles.

Anyway, visiting these locations took most of the morning, as I had to catch a series of city buses which fortunately were very frequent and convenient. I used my phone to track my location, so I would know when to disembark, and by the time I got back to the center of town my battery was getting low -- a potential problem because my train ticket was electronic and I had to show it on my phone to get back to London. This led to a fiasco involving me buying a phone charger, going to a packed Starbucks to plug it in, getting no juice when I did so and thinking the charger didn't work, taking it back to the phone shop, having to get the phone jack "serviced" (i.e. cleaned out), and finally successfully charging the phone while I had coffee at a restaurant on the university campus.

Technology!

With that out of the way, I went to see the cathedral.

Coventry's medieval cathedral was destroyed by World War II bombing. The shell has been left standing as a sort of monument to our human folly.

There's even broken stained glass still clinging to the Gothic window frames.

Next to the ruins a new cathedral opened in 1962, and it's unlike any other cathedral you'll see in England -- a very modernist structure with a mid-century aesthetic.

I like it and think it's quite beautiful, but I'm guessing that opinions are divided. It has some very modern stained and etched glass, and inlaid stone floors, among other features.

I had lunch among the students in that university restaurant, and then took a walk through the neighborhood known as "Fargo" (an abbreviation of Far Gosford Street), which included lots of little shops and restaurants and looked like it was probably a student hangout.

This old theatre looks like it probably has an interesting history. It appears the venue moved to a new location (or at least that was the plan). The top photo is also from my walk to the Fargo neighborhood.

From there I headed back to the train and came back to London, arriving back home at about 6 p.m. It was a fun day out!