Whether you come for the world-famous football club, the Beatles, or even just to have a good time, Liverpool is city that won’t disappoint.
Day 1
Afternoon
I know it’s going to be a good weekend, because everyone keeps telling me. As soon as the train pulls into Liverpool Lime Street station, the conductor wishes us “a boss weekend”. Then, when I check in to the smart Innside by Melia hotel, I find a note also wishing me “a boss stay.” Boss it is, then. (Translation for non-Liverpudlians: it means great.)
For anyone visiting Liverpool for the first time, the best way to get your bearings is to head down to its riverside and walk along the Mersey as the sun sets. The historic Royal Albert Dock lights up and the last rays of sun bounce off the dramatic modern architecture sitting alongside the heritage wharves as cruise ships and ferries sail past. It’s lovely.
Liverpool is a Unesco City of Music and host to this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. But it’s most famous, of course, as the home town of the Beatles, so I visit their statue on the waterfront first, then The Beatles Story exhibition. It’s great fun – an immersive museum where you walk through the band’s journey to fame, from the Cavern Club to Abbey Road. The real Cavern Club is still pumping with music nearby in the city centre; you can also visit John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s childhood homes, run by the National Trust.
The Beatles Story exhibition is great fun, it’s an immersive museum where you walk through the band’s journey to fame,
Evening
It’s time to sample the legendary Liverpool nightlife, so I head to the Baltic Triangle and its Cains Brewery Village, which is booming with life. This old warehouse district is now a creative hub and everywhere people are spilling out of pubs and bars as bands play inside and out. There’s even a bingo-rave.
I grab dinner in the popular Lu Ban restaurant in the redeveloped Cains Brewery. The Anglo-Chinese restaurant is all about perfectly presented Chinese dishes, with a Liverpool twist, like beer cocktails.
Day 2
Morning
The best way to get to know any city is to walk around it and so I join super-informative Liverpool Famous Walking Tours guide Pam. Pam regales me with tales of the city’s famous former residents, from Charles Dickens to Herman Melville, before whizzing us round Albert Dock, the RopeWalks district (so named because that’s where they made ropes for ships in its straight, narrow streets) and what was once the old sailors’ town.
In its heyday, Liverpool was one of the richest cities in the world, awash with money, before a period of post-war decline and then regeneration. It is an outward-looking city, irrevocably linked to the rest of the world – between 1830 and 1930 at least nine million emigrants sailed from Liverpool for a new life in Australia, the US and Canada, and it’s full of international tourists today.
It is also full of glorious grand buildings, many of them formerly owned by shipping magnates and banks, topped with statues of its famous, mythical Liver Bird. They are now museums, bars and coffee shops, interspersed with modern architecture and renovated warehouses.
Liverpool is also a centre for the arts, with its own branch of the Tate gallery, in Albert Dock.
Afternoon
Liverpool is also a centre for the arts, with its own branch of the Tate gallery, in Albert Dock. It’s free to enter and I wander around its modern art exhibits, many of which tell the rich cultural history of the city, alongside pieces from artists such as Picasso and Miró. As well as the Tate, there’s the enormous Walker Art Gallery and the Bluecoat arts centre, the oldest building in Liverpool’s city centre.
Evening
A night out in Liverpool can be as large as you like, and dinner, too, at any level you want – from tasty street food from all over the world, right up to Scouse dining at its best, at Barnacle in Duke Street Market. This cool new modern-British brasserie in a warehouse in the RopeWalks has fast become the city’s top foodie spot and is Michelin-recommended.
Liverpool is most famous, of course, as the home town of the Beatles, so I visit their statues on the waterfront.
Day 3
Morning
I wish I had time to take in more of Liverpool’s many museums before I leave – it has more museums and galleries than any other UK city outside London. There’s a fascinating WWII bunker museum, Western Approaches Museum, as well as the popular Maritime Museum and The Museum of Liverpool, which tells the story of the city. In the astonishingly grand St George’s Hall is The History Whisperer experience, taking you through its old law courts, which sealed the fate of so many poor convicts.
But you can’t leave Liverpool without one last song, so I head to the British Music Experience in the beautiful Cunard Building on the water’s edge.
It’s a journey through popular music in the UK and is stuffed full of artefacts from every era – rock’n’roll to glam rock, punk to Britpop. There are interactive exhibitions where you can dance and play with music legends, and a hologram show.
The weekend is over, but the music plays on. Conclusion: Liverpool rocks.
Kerry Parnell was a guest of VisitBritain.
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