Day 11: Leicester

We were up early in the morning because P had an appointment at the Leicester archives. He had only booked one microfiche reader, but as it turned out when we arrived (after driving back and forth down the block a few times, first to spot the archives and next to spot the parking), there were plenty of spaces available for us both.

We were looking for records of his ancestors, but as his surname is not particularly common, any references to that name were of interest. P looked through microfiche copies of records while I located books of transcribed or indexed parish registers, census records etc and noted down all the records I could find.

By the end of the morning we had decided that there was nothing further that we couldn't equally well find back in New Zealand (since the Latter Day Saints church have very good family history centres where we can order microfilmed records). So P cancelled the booking he had made for later in the week. The original plan was to go elsewhere in the afternoon, however we had just freed up another day and P had heard that the local family history society also had a good library, so we went to find it, only to discover that it was their early closing day. So we decided to explore Leicester instead.

I'm sure that Leicester is a vibrant and exciting place to live - I have heard of all sorts of events there such as poetry readings etc. As a tourist destination though, I don't think it rates very highly, although we had a pleasant enough afternoon wandering around. The architecture is a bit of a mish-mash of new and old buildings with a mess of construction sites. These are some of the buildings and monuments that appealed to me:







It also has quite a colourful semi-open market.



Does anyone know what this fruit is?





Would you eat at this restaurant?