IF YOU think Blackpool is just about its annual lights display, terrifying funfair rides, nightclubs and fish and chips, try it in the morning before it is lit up and the day-trip coaches are still on the M55.
Then it offers urban beauty as a big sky and lively sea do the lighting and the blustering wind provides the noise, while the mighty roller-coasters are quiet and the bars and stalls along the Golden Mile remain shuttered.
We hit the town just right, parked halfway along the Golden Mile, crossed the famous tram tracks and had a bracing walk overlooking the beach towards the Central Pier, with its big wheel and rides, and the dark red, lattice girders of Blackpool Tower dominating the landscape.
Further north along the Fylde Coast and into Morecambe Bay, the scenery would become more conventionally attractive but the sea air and the white capped waves
