Blackpool, England

Blackpool is a town on the west coast of England, just south of the Lakes district. It's famous as a working class holiday destination. Like many beach towns, the waterfront is loaded with restaurants, shops, and activities for all ages. Three piers also have an assortment of leisure attractions for visitors. We went to Blackpool at the very end of the season, i.e. the first weekend in November.

The water was too cold to go in, which was fine since the weather was too blustery for any but the most ambitious of people to even try outdoor swimming. Plus, the daylight was already rather short.

The ocean and one of the piers at sunset, about 4:30 p.m.

The piers feature some gambling halls, though the gambling is usually a small part of a larger and more family friendly gaming area. The games are a mixture of fairground game stalls, electronic games of chance, and video games like those at a Dave & Buster's. I wandered through Treasure Island, one of the halls on the waterfront, and was amazed at the variety of games, from first-person shooter video games to Dance Dance Revolution to dexterity games like skeeball.

Blackpool also has a zoo and several parks, none of which we visited since our stay was so short and the weather was so inclement. We did see some fantastic outdoor sculptures in the downtown area.

Some sort of diver with penguins below

Dominating the skyline is the Blackpool Tower, an Eiffel Tower-like structure with an observation deck and many other attractions on the first few floors.

Blackpool Tower

The big flaw that the children spotted in the town of Blackpool is the absence of an actual pool. Every where we went, they asked where the pool was. They were hoping to go swimming! We tried to convince them that the weather was too bad for swimming anyway, but they would not believe us.

The manager at our hotel assured us that the weather is much nicer in the summer time and there are plenty of indoor activities, like the Tower Circus. Of course, the real attraction that brought us was the Illuminations, a sort of Christmas-light display that happens every September and October in Blackpool. This year (2012), the last weekend of the display was the first weekend of November, so we were there just in time. More about those in subsequent posts!