Blackpool Tower, Blackpool, England. Photo courtesy of Ingy The Wingy via Flickr.
Blackpool is one of England’s most famous seaside towns. Or should that be infamous? Nearly everyone English has a story about Blackpool and it’s seaside theme park attractions.
This famous town is located in The North of England, on the Irish Sea coast, north of Liverpool and Manchester. Blackpool has gone from being farmland of peat lands which gave the river and sea a black color, to being a fashionable seabathing resort in the mid 18th century and a booming resort with the coming of the railway and building of the pleasure piers in the 19th century. By 1920 Blackpool was hosting around eight million holiday-makers a year.
While Blackpool remains a popular seaside resort in England, many more people fly overseas these days where the weather is actually warm; weather in the north of England can be unreliable to say the least. But Blackpool remains undaunted.
They still get millions of visitors a year and they’ve still got their dancehalls and circuses, illuminations along the seven mile seafront and the Winter Gardens, waterpark, and three piers. There’s even a Madame Tussaud’s waxworks and a huge aquarium with a walk-through shark tank.
To celebrate turning 117, the famous Blackpool Tower, modelled on the Eiffel Tower, has just had a makeover. It still has the circus from 1894 in the basement, its ballroom, and the creepy Tower Dungeon attraction. The new Tower Eye is a glass floored observation platform you can walk on at the top of the tower. Not good for my vertigo, but probably very good for the continuing pleasure to be found in Blackpool.
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February 24, 2012 by Viator
Sightseeing, Things To Do, Tours & Activities