Fog, fog and more fog. It's no wonder Morecambe, hidden away in north-west Lancashire, was destined to become the location of much-loved crime drama The Bay.
When I visit a new place, I have a checklist of things I like to do. You could boil it down to four categories 1) Get Caffeinated, 2) Get Educated, 3) Get Fed and 4) Get Walked. I find it to be a tidy way of discovering the important things in a new place.
Get Caffeinated
If you are, as I am, slightly dependent on the substance. It is important to know that you will find at least one coffee shop open at the weekend.
Normally, you might look up 'Best Cafes in [insert location here]'. Most of the time, what you end up getting is a quality coffee in a clean and very photo-friendly location, whilst only paying what an apprentice earns in an hour.
Call it being adventurous, or lazy, I instead chose to walk and pick the first place I saw: 'Rita's'.
Now if 'Instagrammable', oat milk with swan-decorated foam is your poison, you'd probably be best walking past it. If however, you enjoy a time capsule preserving the spirit of the greasy fry-up, a shrine to Manchester United and a £1.30 coffee, then look no further.
Not only were the staff at Rita's absolutely charming, but the atmosphere is the total antithesis to a growing trend of feeling like you have to empty your wallet every half hour or give up your spot.
Spending time at Rita's is more of a ritual for those who visit regularly, and a crucial way of getting people out the house and chatting. What's not to love?
Get Educated
Once you feel your heart whizzing at 100mph, it is important to at least try to get your brain to keep up. Museums are always a solid option but my port of call was more bookish.
Admittedly, I double-dipped here. First, I stopped by the Festival Market by the promenade, where you can buy just about anything (except for a netted wash bag that will fit your shoes).
The place also smells overwhelmingly like dog treats. It only struck me as I walked out that about a quarter of all stalls in the market were specifically designed to reward pets for not doing very much.
I walked out a learned gentleman with a copy of Tyson Fury's autobiography, hoping to learn a little more about the former Morecambe resident. But as I made my way to the beach, a quaint bookshop caught my eye.
Filled to the rafters with all sorts, the Old Pier Bookshop was a treat. To sit and sift through gems like 'How to Build a Cathedral' felt like you were sitting inside the shop owner's memories.
Another book in hand (unfortunately this one is a present and will therefore remain a secret between myself and the owner) I did finally get to eating.
Get Fed
Annoyingly, many of the places that looked so tantalising were closed on a Saturday. Which you might think would be the ideal time to be open (you would be right).
I did eventually make it to The King's Arms, a nice enough pub with plenty of room. Pub grub is a staple of the weekend and the steak pie, mash, mushy peas and 'I can't believe it's not Bisto' were slightly underwhelming.
Then again, you can't have it all your own way and, thanks to the pistachio ice cream I picked up at Lewis's Ice Cream & Coffee Shop, I at least had the fuel to burn on the fourth and final item on my list.
Get Walked
Was it a slightly curious decision to get an ice cream when it was raining and so cold I had to eat it before it got too frozen? Maybe.
But I suppose if I waited for a sunny day in the UK I'd eat about two a year. So, joyfully, I took my dessert with me to the creepiest pier I have ever come across.
Gloomy is putting it lightly when it comes to this view. Morecambe's seafront was a graveyard of ships, many lying on their sides, waiting for an owner who will never come back.
Of course, they film ITV's The Bay here. Mystery and eeriness permeates Morecambe. It feels like a living, breathing place that could swallow you up if it didn't want you about anymore.
In the distance, a solitary trawler chundered across the horizon. In fact, the amount of fog on the day meant it constituted the horizon. If there was life beyond Morecambe or stars above, you'd have a hard time knowing it.
Morecambe has a both proud and complicated relationship with the Irish sea. The 1800s proved to be the golden era for the fishing industry as the Bay gave people shrimp, cockles and flatfish.
But the sea also took. The Morecambe Bay cockling disaster which took 23 lives is now woven into the town's fabric.
These days, fishing is not the economic force it once was for the town. Yet, at the end of the pier, you'll usually find a group of people who still have plenty of sea salt in their blood.
Casting a line far further than I could chuck any market-bought dog treat, these men and women sit patiently, their hooks navigating the ridges of the seabed with expert precision.
After a little chit-chat, I continued my walk down the front. My bliss briefly interrupted by a child who tried to throw a stone at me. Fortunately, Morecambe hasn't produced a semi-decent cricketer since Gavin Moffat played for Cambridge University in 1996, so I was quite safe.
Winding down, I passed the fitting tribute to legendary comedian Eric Morecambe before reading up about the incoming Eden Project.
A couple of hours later, my brain well and truly swollen, I was positively knackered and drove home, I'd had a cracker of a day in Morecambe. What a crime it would be if you didn't give it a chance.
Share