Take a peak at deal
ENJOY a rail trip to Switzerland’s beautiful Jungfrau mountain with a £100 discount. The deal on the eight-day Jungfrau Express trip for dates in June, September and October means the half-board holiday is £1,199. Diamond Rail Holidays has other deals too – call 0844 544 3808 or see the firm’s website at diamondrailholidays.co.uk. This proud maritime city has long been one of the nation’s most important ports, famous for fishing, freight and passenger ships.
Accordingly, it was targeted during both world wars, which explains the scattergun mix of ancient and modern architecture.
The Old Town – the bit centred around Trinity parish church and the Hull river – still has its medieval layout. Several streets are particularly well preserved with Georgian houses in a patchwork of cobbled lanes.
The High Street here is mostly recreational and residential, good for historic pubs and museums. It runs beside the River Hull, the site of Hull’s first port, which is why it is lined with wealthy merchant houses.
It is a place with all sorts of idiosyncracies, such as the street named Land of Green Ginger (nobody knows why) and the UK’s smallest window. To get the best out of it go on a guided walk (£4, tourhull.com). Seek out Hepworth’s Arcade, a glass-roofed slice of Victoriana dating back to the 1890s. Dinsdale’s Joke Shop has been here since the 1930s and its window alone is enough for an hour’s entertainment, let alone the conversations inside: “Have you got any rubber eggs?” “Certainly sir. Boiled or fried?”
Around the corner is Trinity Market with artisan stalls selling local produce, and Steve Mathie’s 25-year-old vinyl record store Spin It, featuring Steve’s gallery of famous people from Hull – a memorably diverse selection. ThanksTh to regeneration funding the downtown portpo on the Humber, as opposed to the first port on the River Hull, is a busy marina stuffed with yachtsya and a couple of historic sailing ships. The adjacentad warehousing district has been reborn as the trendy Fruitmarket, Hull’s Covent Garden.
Walk out on to the short pier and wonder at th the immensity of the Humber, admire the di distant Humber bridge and look out towards th the sea, another 20 miles, past where Hull’s re revival industry, wind turbines, is situated. ThisTh h landmark building, which looks like a shark risingri s out of the riverbank, is the city’s biggest singlesi attraction – Hull’s Eiffel Tower.
In essence it is an aquarium, but one which fo focuses on conservation and education as well as entertainment. Its interior is divided into se sections on oceans past, present and future.
Highlights are inevitably the penguins and th the huge main tank with sharks and swordfish.
Look out also for the petticoat-trailing Ja Japanese sea-nettle jellyfish, and once at the en end make sure you ride the glass-walled lift ba back to the entrance – it rises through the main ta tank. Adult £10.80, child £9, thedeep.co.uk. HullH has several good museums, all free, but two particularlypa good ones sit side by side on the bankba of the Hull river in the Old Town. Streetlife