The first person we met in Hull was a volunteer at the Ferens Art Gallery.
He spoke with such obvious passion and love for the city that after 10 minutes, our eyes were on stalks, desperate to see the art gallery and to see Hull.
As a volunteer at one of the several free council-run galleries and museums, chances are he's been through Visit Hull & East Yorkshire's revolutionary Big Welcome training programme.
It's free training provided to the council's staff, volunteers and partners – from waiters to taxi drivers – designed to ensure that visitors, instead of being asked "what have you come here for?" will find people across the region promoting it and helping them to get enthusiastic about it.
People from Hull are generally already incredibly proud of their home. Add that bit of customer service training, and you have a recipe for truly excited guests to the city.
Artists of Hull
There's probably no more exciting place to visit in the UK at the moment than Hull. The UK City of Culture status has done more than give the city an arts boost; it has inflamed the people, prompted massive infrastructure programmes, and driven tourism up already. Live music seems to be playing wherever you go, and every attraction is full of bright-blue-jacketed volunteer city guides.
The Ferens Gallery previously expected around 300 visitors on a weekday, 1,000 on a Saturday or Sunday; in the first week it was open in 2017, it received 21,000 visitors. When we visit, on a Tuesday afternoon in February half-term, it's got a number of visitors any other provincial gallery would kill for.
The Ferens reopened in January after a 16-month refurbishment programme, with an opening visit from the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall (Camilla bought a painting by a Hulluvian artist).
It's a fantastic attraction of national quality, with 12 galleries and several high-profile paintings you may well have seen before. The staff are well worth chatting to as you make your way around, as they can give a lot of context; our guide pointed out that a lot of Hulluvians have grown up with visits to the gallery, and cited The Lion at Home, by Rosa Bonheur, as many children's favourite.
The Ferens has recently acquired Lorenzetti's 14th-century painting Christ between Saints Paul and Peter, but instead of simply displaying it, it has put it in a gallery with other, similar works from the same period to contextualise it.
A history of art can be seen in the Ferens, as the galleries lead from the Renaissance, to Georgian, to Victorian, to 20th century works.
The history of Hull, too, can be seen here: In particular Gallery 12 is maritime-themed, and famous Hull works – such as Mr Great Heart by Peter Howson, which featured on the cover of The Beautiful South's album Quench – take pride of place.
Context is everything at the Ferens; a favourite is Gallery 11, which comprises works bought by Ferens himself, or bequeathed or otherwise acquired from the Friends of the Ferens, and includes some of the gallery's earliest acquisitions. It gives more of a sense of history to this beautiful building.
The Ferens is also currently home to an exhibition of five of Francis Bacon’s ‘screaming popes’, brought together for the very first time.
Rolling in the Deep
The year 2000 brought many special millennium projects to the UK, some of them more successful than others – and one of the very best is the Deep, Hull’s premier attraction, a striking angular submarium jutting out into the junction of the rivers Hull and Humber.
The overriding message is of conservation. The Deep goes one better than simply showing sea life; it starts with an exhibition of extinct creatures, and brings them back to life in light-hearted 3D displays.
It talks about habitat, environment and evolution.
It gives context to the importance of the oceans, showing you quite literally what lies on the seabed across the earth – the topography.
And it shows famous quotes about the importance of humanity in conserving our planet, such as this one from Marshall McLuhan: "There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew."
All those impressions form before you've even seen a shoal of live fish. The centrepiece of the attraction is a vast tank that offers long, lingering glimpses into a fantastic ecosystem of large fish, sharks and show-off stingrays, which made all the children (and some of the adults) gasp with delight every time they shimmied across the glass.
There’s lots more to see, too. When we visited, the refurbishment of the Lagoon of Light was almost complete – sure to be a stunning exhibit.
Group rates are £9.50, with special fast-track access – but even better rates can be obtained through Tina Mott at Visit Hull & East Yorkshire.
Free museums
It wasn't until we took a guided tour of Hull that we realised exactly how much there is to see.
Most cities can boast at least one decent museum; Hull has at least four, all free, all showing different facets of Hull life.
The Wilberforce, Streetlife and Hull & East Riding museums are all together on the same square, just off the historic High Street – now rather quiet and serene, no longer the thrusting, sweating vein of the city it would've been in olden times.
The Wilberforce is set in the former home of William Wilberforce, Hull's most famous son, and focuses on the history of slavery and the great man's contribution to its abolition. As if to underline the importance of the subject, the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation (WISE) is just a stone's throw away – an important centre of study worldwide.
The Streetlife Museum is adjacent, telling the story of Hull's transport with lively lifesize displays. Out the back is the Arctic Corsair, a deep-sea fishing trawler preserved from the 1960s, which is available for free guided group tours, booked in advance.
And next to the Streetlife is the Hull & East Riding Museum, which tells the story of civilisation from the early humans, to the Romans, to the Anglo-Saxons and beyond, with excellent lifelike displays. One of the best exhibits is the Roman mosaics dug up in English fields. Photos show the way pipes had been cut across them as they lay in the ground, and the displays show how they would've looked when they were new and complete.
The Maritime Museum is another little free gem, housed in the striking former headquarters of the Hull Dock Company. It has exhibitions on Hull's massive fishing, whaling and trade industries, which at one point made it the third biggest port in Britain, after London and Liverpool.
A particularly pleasing exhibit, new for 2017, shows computer-animated films of Bowhead whales, along with music, all made by Hull students. The museum is currently undergoing renovations for other new 2017 exhibits.
A guided tour
We were guided around by Paul Schofield, a Hulluvian born and bred and a tour guide for almost 30 years. Paul is up for the VisitBritain Tourism Superstar award, and everywhere we went in Hull, people knew him – they said hello on the street, waved from shop windows, and promised they'll vote for him to win the award.
He knows everything worth knowing about Hull, and skilfully guides groups around the old town, from picturesque Prince Street – once home to Hull's locally-infamous avant-garde artists in the '60s, now one of Hull's most prestigious neighbourhoods; through to Holy Trinity church, one of Britain's largest parish churches, which is to become officially a minster this year; and the handsome square on which it stands, which spans a multitude of eras architecturally.
Then it's up toward the cobbled High Street, and the museums there – plus the pubs, if that's what your group's interested in.
Hull is unusual in that not only are the majority of its pubs still independent, but it's getting new ones, too – there is a growing food and drink scene here. The pubs are historic as well – one of Paul's specialties is a historic pub tour. One of the favourites is ye Olde White Harte, which is a beautiful 17th-century house in a narrow lane, worth seeing for its architecture alone. The Lion and Key on High Street is renowned for its fish and chips, which some Hulluvians say is the best in the world.
Paul also takes tours around the Hepworth Arcade, his favourite building in Hull, a lovely Victorian covered market with a host of excellent independent traders. Young people have made their name here in recent years selling their own homemade chocolate, coffee and ice cream. Paul knows them all by name, naturally.
The tour then reaches the docks, space now used for Hull's many festivals and doubtless an important venue for this summer’s many City of Culture events.
Speaking of which, we also visited the Humber Street Gallery, which is currently showing an incredibly explicit exhibition of work by COUM Transmissions, a group who caused a lot of controversy in the late ‘60s. At the top of the Gallery is an open-air viewing platform – a lovely place to take in the stunted skyline of Hull.
The gallery does a lovely coffee, and its changing programme of free art through 2017 makes it an excellent choice for groups who are on a more traditional tour, but who still want a slice of City of Culture action.
