You do not need stereo and headphones, leave mp3 and cd at home, a Liverpool, city of culture and gods Beatles, every corner speaks of music and plays a melody rich in history and curiosity. Are you ready to go?
First day, the arrival
If you are planning a tour to Liverpool on the trail of the Beatles, here are the indications for a low cost and music trip, of course. Prefer Manchester Airport and not Liverpool for landing, for a purely economic matter. I recommend you to see the offers for both airports, but you will see that Manchester is often less popular and costs much less to get there by plane and connection with Liverpool is very fast it is comfortable. The train and bus station is inside the airport, in Terminal 1, very well signposted like almost everything in England. We decide to take a Northern Line train, which in an hour and ten minutes (cost ÂŁ 18 return within a month, each) will take us to Liverpool Lime Street Station, right in the city center.
Our Hotel is the Britannia Adelphi Hotel, practically a few steps from the station. It is a very old hotel (in 2014 it will turn 100 years old) but for this very reason very fascinating and full of interesting anecdotes about who has stayed there. Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon they occupied a suite for a concert in memory of John Lennon and John himself met there with Cinthya, his first wife, who worked as a waitress nearby. The hall, the relaxation room that on New Year's Eve (we were there to celebrate New Year's Eve) has been transformed into a ballroom of the past, the corridors, the stairs, everything takes you back in time into one typically British luxury style, with some touches of kitsch and the inevitable carpet that blends well between gilded handrails and chandeliers with crystal drops.
We go out immediately to search the surroundings, but it is already dark despite being 4 in the afternoon. We eat in a fast food restaurant just below the hotel and enter huge streets lined with shop windows now closed, imagining the swarm of people who would have crowded them during the day. We flank theEmpire Theater which is also very nice illuminated by the evening lights and the Town Hall; also Lime Street is colored with lights behind the huge main window and in front of advertising billboards that look like real installations winking and flashing.
Cavern Quarter, where it all began - second day
We immediately decide to go to the neighborhood "where it all began": Cavern Quarter, and taking Matthew Street, here is the surprise .. the Cavern Club, the most famous club in the world, where the Beatles played when there were still four Liverpool boys with no crowds of screaming girls, it's open and live music starts at 14pm! We would have stayed there all day, but we decide to come back on Thursday, when there is the great night dedicated to the Beatles and the official cover band. Not to be missed.
We go up the narrow steps and see the light again, little to tell the truth, because it still rains at times. In front of the Cavern Club the life-size statue of John Lennon and the wall of fame, a wall where on each brick there is written the name of who played in the club until the 70s. Come on QuarryMan (previous formation to the Beatles before they became such) to Oasis, from Elton John or Eric Clapton, there are so many! And to think that the Beatles played at the Cavern Club "only" from 1961 to 1963, even if for more than 200 times! If you look up you will see statues of Liverpool artists protruding from the wall just to the right, naturally reminiscent of the Beatles and one in particular John Lennon, with a phrase of Imagine. A few meters further on and you can sit on a “musical” bench with the faces of Fab4 and on the wall behind you countless gold discs, including staves and musical notes! Right in front of it, the point where the real door of the Cavern once stood is indicated, then "rotated" by 90% and rebuilt with the same bricks with the entrance that still leads to the most famous venue in the world. Incredible how many things to see in just a few square meters.
Left the Cavern Quarter, full of pubs, clubs, discos and with the inevitable Beatles Shop and Lennon Bar, both closed on the first of the year, we head towards the port, another very characteristic area of ​​Liverpool. But first we meet the statue of Eleonor Rigby, right at the exit of the district, resting along a facade of the Met Quarter shopping center, one of the most “in” in the city. The statue was dedicated to "all lonely people", as the famous song states and depicts a life-size woman sitting on a bench. In front of her, needless to say, the Eleonor Rigby Hotel. We arrive at the Albert Dock that the wind freezes our face, although we are almost completely hooded. A mobile turns illuminated but without any children on it and here it appears anchored to the port, the mythical yellow submarine. It's possible even sleep in it, while alongside there is the Joker's Boat, also the one used as an apartment, set of the Batman movie. The only shop open, take a guess, is the Beatles Store at the Beatles Museum, also closed, but which we will see tomorrow.
Returning to the center we decide to stretch to go and see the Liverpool Chinatown, home to one of the best rooted Chinese communities in Europe but above all of the largest Chinese gate in Europe! Seeing her appear in front of us after alleys of brown bricks and Billy Elliot high-rises is spectacular. It is imposing and very colorful even though it is already getting dark. The street lamps decorated with Chinese dragons illuminate it in a fascinating way and photos are a must before heading back down the street of the Chinese quarter, full of restaurants, karaoke and bilingual lights. Two dragons on the side of the road and a huge Chinese hypermarket are the last things that speak to us of the East, then it's back to English civilization. It is now time for dinner and we stop to eat a Fish & Chips at Yates's, a very nice pub. They serve it on newspaper, with boiled vegetable mousse and lots of chips! Excellent filet, price 18 pounds for two including drinks. It's time to go back to the hotel, today we hiked a lot, a well-deserved rest awaits us.
The Magical Mystery Tour, third day
The Magical Mystery Tour is waiting to take us away! Yes, this morning we decided to do the Magical Mystery tour that will take us to the legendary places of the Beatles! There are tons of Beatles tours in Liverpool, but this one, while not the most accurate, is definitely the cheapest. We have in fact seen the Taxi tour, which even take you inside the houses of the 4 baronets, but for us they were really prohibitive, and on the contrary, trying to see places a little too out of the way by yourself with public transport proved to be too expensive an undertaking for the time factor above all. So we were "satisfied" with spending 15 pounds each and to get on a picturesque, colorful bus that, loaded with tourists from all over the world, has roamed us for 2 hours to discover the places of the creators of a piece of pop music history. Music on board, a witty guide for those who understand English well and many many beautiful places far from the center that we wanted to see, such as Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields gate! There is time to take pictures and get off the bus, even for some houses, like Paul's and George's, but only from outside. Then from the bus we see that of John Lennon, Brian Epstein and other famous places, such as the church where John and Paul first met and where the tomb of Eleonor Rigby is also located, the street where Ringo was born and the yellow door of the Registry Office, where John and Cinthya married in secret.
The tour departs from the Albert Dock tourist office at 11:30 am and after two hours leaves us downtown, right next to the Cavern Quarter, opposite theHard Day's Night Hotel, a fully Beatles-themed, luxury category hotel with statues of the four musicians on the roof and commemorative photos everywhere on the facade. Let's go eat at the Cavern Pub, which is open today and offers us a discount because they have the tour ticket.
We leave for the port where we visit the Liverpool Museum, at Pier Head, where ferries also depart to see the city skyline across the River Mersey. The museum is free and we recommend it because it is really interesting and interactive, like all the best British museums. Inside, a white spiral that contains the stairs leading to the upper floors welcomes us and as we walk through the various rooms we are amazed at how the British can transmit love for culture through life-size reproductions, interactive screens, objects to touch, try and so on.
The museum The beatles story it is not free but costs 12 pounds and the ticket is valid for two days.
Culture and shopping, fourth day
Today we go to see the majestic Liverpool Cathedral, which repeatedly appeared imposing to us from afar during our walks or from the colorful bus of the previous day. We then take Bold Street, a picturesque street full of beautiful clothing and confectionery shops and we see it in front of us getting closer and closer. The entrance is imposing with a large Christmas wreath on the massive wooden door and as soon as the side doors are opened, we are in the huge nave with a very high ceiling. Two nice English gentlemen a bit elderly welcome us and deliver one map with mini guide in English and they illustrate the main points, the chapel of the virgin Mary, the children's chapel, the didactic sector, the memorial tombs, the main altar, the huge pipe organ. And much more, but it is so beautiful to see with calm and freedom, it is so large but at the same time welcoming, with huge Christmas trees decorated inside and large nativity scenes, candles lit with votive offerings and huge stained glass windows. You can climb the tower, but for a fee and there is also an internal shop. But we go out after visiting it and we head to St. Luke, a “roofless” church, having been bombed, very impressive, right on the way back to Bold Street. Beautiful even if you can only see it from the outside, green garden with benches where you can rest in the shade of the Gothic inlays.
On the road that takes us back to the center, between Renshaw Street and Ranelagh Street, we meet a very special shopping center which we recommend to see. It is in fact the ground floor and the basement of a corner building, where a pile of hippie shops, gothic, which sell alternative clothing or used records, winds through a maze of colored iron inlays, stairways that seem to be surrounded by hellish flames but colored in yellow or green, vintage clothing shops in which to enter you must pass by a small door with Woodstock on it and many other oddities in which it is fabulous to get lost even if you don't want to buy anything. (which is almost impossible, but you only pay cash, no credit cards).
We return to the port to stroll under the arcades of the Albert Dock, while the imposing Echo Arena, venue for events and concerts, can be seen on the left. Under the arcades with red columns you can visit one Tate Gallery in miniature compared to that of London, with an adjoining shop; many more intimate and particular shops, especially for sweets and a nautical theme.
Return home, fifth day
Last morning for shopping before leaving for Manchester Airport. Let's go to the Cavern Walks, yet another shopping center in the Cavern Quarter, where in the center you will find four other life-size statues of the Beatles in "concert" pose and if you lift your head up, right above the escalator, here are the instruments of the famous four, who accompanied us throughout our journey.
At Lime Street station connections to the Northern Line to Manchester they are very frequent, so just go a little earlier than the scheduled time and you will find the train that suits you, on average there are two per hour for that destination.
Liverpool deserves a thorough visit, too often it is underestimated or compared to Manchester as an industrial and unattractive city. Nothing more false! There is history, there is music, there is culture, there is shopping, there is pub, there is so much to see! If you have more time than us, include it in a North Wales car tour or enjoy it for just a few days as the only destination of your trip, you will see that it will be worth it.
Then if you don't want to get lost Abbey Road, the street of the Beatles, here is a post that explains how to get there.
