Over the centuries, Hull has always been an important seaport. Even today, many European people are starting their visit to Northern England in this city, which itself is proving particularly worthwhile. The Old Town is an especially pleasant surprise.

If one looked upon the five Northern Powerhouse cities as five sisters, Liverpool and Manchester would be the two elders, used to loads of attention and are constantly trying to outdo each other. Newcastle and Leeds have had to live with fewer suitor, but are now clearly preparing for a role more upfront. And Hull? Hull might be the shy sister, but one who is secretly aware she has admirers too. But she doesn’t shout it from the rooftops.
Despite this modesty, Kingston upon Hull – as its full name goes – has always played a key role in northern England. Here the ferries moor that connect the north with Rotterdam Europoort in the Netherlands and Zeebrugge in Belgium. Those who visit Northern England from Europe often do so via Hull. But how many of the countless visitors that entered England via Hull actually visited the city? Our guess: not too many.
In the past, that was perhaps understandable. Like her other four sisters, Hull has long been a city that did not really command a more extended stay. And as with her sisters, that has now changed considerably.

High & pop culture
Anyone who comes to Hull with these events in mind expects the visit may well be a sad one. But exit Hull Paragon Station and walk towards Trinity Market and the Minster – the area is fully pedestrianised – and you are in for a pleasant and welcoming surprise.

In fact, the welcome starts at the station itself, through the statue of a rather hurried-looking Philip Larkin (1922-1985), in life the country’s most important poet and librarian of the Hull University Library. Larkin’s hurried pose is explained by a plaque with an excerpt from his poem “The Whitsun Weddings”: “That Whitsun I was getting late.”
Despite his deceitfully bourgeois appearance, Larkin was a pleasantly mischievous self-willed poet, famous for poems such as “This Be The Verse”:

They fuck you up, your mum and dad
 
They may not mean to, but they do



and

“Annus Mirabilis”:



Sexual intercourse began

In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) -

Between the end of the “Chatterley” ban

And the Beatles’ first LP

Are you lost?
After the impressive story we heard in the Hull Minster, a walk through the Old Town is an extra great pleasure. Fair is fair: we did not really expect all those charming streets full of beautifully renovated buildings, some of which house decidedly charming catering establishments. Locals and visitors drink their coffees on the terrace of Butler Whites, buy their vintage clothing in the Poorbody Boutique, have a pub meal at the Humber Dock: all of them venues with character.

Across the Hull river, where it flows into the much wider Humber, lies The Deep: a beautiful aquarium and sea centre, where you can see sharks, rays, giant sea turtles, as well as countless forms of marine life that you never thought existed. It is busy, especially with families, and rightly so.

Have the thousands arriving with the P&O Ferry by now found their way to The Deep, the covered Trinity Market, Hull Minster and the Old City? On our walk through the city, we are approached twice with the question whether we might be lost. Very kind, but please don’t worry, we are very fine indeed. It is as if the locals cannot really believe that visitors would merely be walking the streets of their city for pleasure and out of curiosity. Which happens to be precisely the case. Hull, the shy sister, has stolen our hearts.