This is the first of two weekends taking in two different British seaside resorts. This weekend it was Morecambe in Lancashire, and this will followed by Torquay in Devon at the end of July.

Arriving at Morecambe by train you feel like you are in the middle of an out of town retail shopping complex. The original terminus station for the railway was almost on the seafront and still exists as a pub, KFC and live music venue, but the modern soulless station sits a few hundred yards inland. It's not that inspiring an arrival if honest.

Our B&B accommodation was in what is known as the west end, and even though the walk along the much renovated promenade was pleasant the whole area did have a rather quiet feel about it, even though it was only 8pm on a Friday evening. The Westleigh B&B was admittedly a fairly cheap option (just £54 a night) but got reasonably high scores on various review sites. It also turned out had recently changed owners and they certainly have their work cut out as the place needs much modernisation in all areas. Given we had an avocado bathroom suite (with a white toilet seat replacement) in our room, I guess it's been 40 years or so since any major refurbishment last took place. The positive points of the B&B were the fabulous view across Morecambe Bay to Cumbria, it was clean, the owner was friendly and it is a building that has bags of potential if they have the money to spend on it.

After checking-in we initially headed to a local fish and chip restaurant but we found that it had closed (needed to be there before 7.30pm), so we had a look at a few other places that were nearby. We eventually ended up at the Morecambe Tandoori as it was the only place open after 9pm and it was a BYO too.

After dinner we wandered back along the promenade and to the iconic Midland Hotel, an art-deco gem on the seafront. It didn't seem as art-deco as expected, but it was certainly a big step up from the Westleigh B&B. Sadly, on the walk back, much of the lighting on the promenade was switched off, it didn't feel unsafe, but it certainly wasn't as nice as it could be.

On Saturday morning we walked into the town centre area of Morecambe. In hindsight we probably should have stayed at this end of the town, and as we planned to have the evening at a restaurant in the town centre we would also see much more later. It also turned out that it Morecambe Music Festival at the weekend so hopefully it would have a different feel to the Friday evening experience.

We continued to walk north from Morecambe along the promenade and onto Hest Bank. We then joined the Lancaster Canal and headed north towards Carnforth. The walk was really nice and given we had followed the promenade and then canal it was an easy 7.5 mile walk of mainly level walking. There was also the opportunity for a refreshment/toilet stop, or two, on the walk as well.

At Carnforth we visited the Brief Encounter Refreshment Room - famous as a result of the 1945 film that used the station for some of the railway scenes - before catching a train to Grange-over-Sands. We had no idea what to expect, but this journey did allow us to cross the famous Arneside viaduct, and the arrival at Grange saw us arrive at the nicely restored station set right against the shoreline promenade. It did seem more positive than the arrival into Morecambe for sure.

A walk around Grange-over-Sands was most pleasant and we stopped for a drink and a snack at the Clare House Hotel which had nice views over manicured gardens and the sea in the distance. After a walk along the promenade we ended up back at the railway station for a train to Lancaster (our first ride on a brand new Class 195) and then a connection back to Morecambe (on a more dated Class 142).

Morecambe was very busy on the Saturday evening as a result of a music festival that had taken over most pubs and hotels in the central area. Some places were heaving and it was a real contrast to the previous evening when we arrived.

We had dinner at a black stone grill and Thai restaurant (a bit of a strange combination). The stone grill, whereby you cook your own meat on a red hot lava stone, was very good as was the Thai food that was prepared. We rounded the evening off at the Davy Jones Locker bar where we managed to get a seat and listen to some live music which was all part of the weekend festival scene.

It will be interesting to see how Morecambe redevelops itself over the coming years as the Eden Centre is planning to build a new biodome complex on the seafront by 2023, it will surely bring visitors to the town, but hopefully the place will also then be able to raise its game. We will wait and see what happens.

On the Sunday morning, straight after breakfast, we hot footed it out of Morecambe and headed back to Derby via Lancaster, Preston and Birmingham by train. I doubt we will be back to Morecambe in the very near future, but will certainly want to pay a visit to nearby Lancaster which, from our very brief time there, looked worthy of a longer visit.