We Love Liverpool!

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The Cavern Club!

Hi again!

It’s just us, bringing you our latest adventure - LIVERPOOL (in a day)! I had always wanted to go there, once I learned it was the birthplace of the Beatles - I just thought it would be interesting! I was pleasantly surprised that not all the musical talent in Liverpool actually dried up & left town when the Beatles moved further afield. In fact, Liverpool turned out to be a bright, vibrant city, with more musical opportunities & events - especially for rock music - than most other places in the UK (including London, in my opinion). Of course, being constantly surrounded by boy & girl bands in the UK had left Vaughan, Pete, Sueanne & myself, ready to hear a bit of the old rock & roll - & so our roadtrip commenced. Liverpool was certainly our scene & we made the most of it - what a great time! Keep reading to hear about our adventures:

Day 1 - Our trip was pretty short, as we had only planned to be away one night, so we had a lot to see. Today we got up really early, packed a few things & headed over
to Pete & Sueanne’s house to pick them up at 7am. From there we drove north past Birmingham & stopped off for a while at one of the large motorway service areas to get coffee, along with half of Blackpool it seemed, who were all on their way to watch a football (soccer) game in London. The traffic was really light in our direction & we made it to Liverpool in excellent time (3 hours) despite the rain, & arrived well before lunch. We weren’t able to check into our hotel quite yet so we headed off for a tiki-tour through town in the car, down around the waterfront, & then towards the Liverpool Cathedral (a massive & imposing Anglican church on the top of a hill), before stopping at a street just around the corner where Sueanne’s Dad had lived for the first 17 years of his life - it was really interesting, & Sueanne got to take lots of photos. We headed back to the hotel, parked the car & went to a nearby pub for lunch (the Rat & Parrot), which was excellent. It was quiet & relaxing there, & we spent some time just chatting until it was 1pm & we could get our stuff into the hotel.

After checking in we walked straight down to Albert Docks, a large refurbished area on the waterfront, now including all kinds of museums, shops & cafes - it was a massive complex, & it was quite pretty down there by the water. We had time for a very quick scout around before heading for the meeting point for our Beatles Magical Mystery Tour. We were picked up in the original big yellow Beatles bus (awesome!) & got seats sorted out together. It was really raining hard again so we were glad to get out of the wet! Our guide was great, & gave an excellent commentary, with music included over the speakers. We drove all around Liverpool & saw various venues where the Beatles had played, George Harrison’s childhood home (Arnold Grove), Paul McCartney’s childhood home (Forthlin Road), Strawberry Fields (the grounds of an orphanage near John's home, where he used to play), several schools that the boys attended, the house where John Lennon grew up with his Aunt Mimi (Menlove Ave), the two homes where Ringo Starr had lived (Madryn St/Admiral Grove - both very close to each other), & the famous Penny Lane. It was heaps of fun, & with a full busload of Beatles fans, everyone was singing along to all the songs & enjoying themselves, despite the weather. We got to take lots of photos & it was well worth it!

At the end of the tour we stopped at the Cavern on Matthew Street, the bar/venue made famous by the Beatles - it still operates & is used today as a platform for new artists to perform their material & to sell their merchandise (demo CDs etc). Bands play in half-hour slots from about 1pm most days, in two different rooms, two stories underground. It was quite hot down there but it was so fantastic to see some decent (& original), loud, live music, & from such a close range - we managed to score the front table by the small stage in the first room, which was a great spot for taking photos! We ended up there for about 3 ½ hours as we had such an excellent time - I could have easily stayed there all night. There was writing covering every space of the walls, which originally began when bands playing there signed their names afterwards. It was even more of a kick to realise that Liverpool had this fantastic underbelly of rock musical talent, & that people were travelling from as far away as the USA to play in the Cavern. Most of the groups we saw were pretty good - there was a really positive & communal vibe (between the patrons & the musicians), & it made all of us feel more enthusiastic about Liverpool in general. It was amazing!

After leaving the Cavern (reluctantly, & only because the boys were hungry), we headed off for some dinner, stopping in at a Lloyd’s Bar (chain pub/restaurant). It was pretty shocking actually as they only had about 5% of their menu to choose from because they had run out of everything else, but after such an awesome day we really just had to try & laugh it off. Liverpool had certainly left a positive impression on us all after just a few hours. Who ever said Liverpool was a shithole? It looks as if it has changed a lot recently, with many old buildings & housing blocks being demolished (especially towards the waterfront) to make way
for new ones. Albert Docks was certainly impressive, as was a nearby area (also part of the docks) called Mann’s Island, where they had managed to maintain a group of large historic buildings (such as the Liver Building), despite the heavy wartime bombing & damage of the area. We headed back to the hotel, very pleased with our long & exciting day - nice!

Day 2 - Today we all had a decent sleep in, as we didn’t have any real plans for our second day in Liverpool. I had thought that we could perhaps go to the Beatles Museum if anyone was interested, but as the weather was slightly better than it had been the day before, we decided to head out on foot for a bit of a city walk. We didn’t see too much that we hadn’t already visited, as the central area of Liverpool was much smaller than we anticipated, but we had a look around the pedestrian streets in the central city, & managed to ‘accidentally’ find the Liverpool Football Club store, where we all bought something (Liverpool are my favourite team, despite Chelsea - my old favourite - just winning the FA Cup a couple of weeks ago) - no, I promise I haven’t turned into a football hooligan! We also got to have a decent look around the docks, & also visited a couple of museum displays that were free - the waterfront has a lot of history, & there are all kinds of things to see & do in that respect.

We had a wander back towards Liverpool Cathedral where we had a look around the Chinatown area for a few minutes. Then we visited the Philharmonic Dining Rooms for lunch, just a few metres away from where Sueanne’s Dad had lived, & from the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall. We had seen the Dining Rooms recommended in a pub guide & WOW, was it worth it or what!? It was incredible inside - there were a few dark smoking rooms (each named after a famous composer), an amazing bar with heaps of stained glass around it, plus a large (non-smoking), extravagant Victorian dining room, where we sat. It seemed so posh, but it was really relaxing & there were loads of couches to sit on, & friendly people all around - after completely stuffing up our lunch order, we even got some free food, & free beer for the boys. The food & service were great though & we really enjoyed ourselves. While we were there we were able to read about some of the history of the Philharmonic Dining Rooms, which was actually really interesting - Sueanne also made sure she got a photo of the men’s toilets, which are famous for their amazing tiling & artwork, so it was a really informative but amusing visit (not to mention yummy!). We had a really great time just chatting, taking photos & mucking around for about 2 hours before heading off back towards the hotel for our trip home - it was so relaxing, & the Dining Rooms really made our day. On the way back we stopped off at the local (main) Catholic church, which is just as impressive as the Anglican one we had seen the day before, although far more modern, large & circular - it was an odd building (& kind of ugly), but I did think that both the churches were definitely much larger than those in any other average city, which probably added to the oddity. It was also interesting that they were quite close together so that you could actually see both of them at the same time from quite a close range.

We made it back to the hotel to pick up the car & head back towards London. Even the drive back was successful & we returned in even better time than we had arrived. There just didn’t seem to be any traffic or traffic jams on any of the motorways which can be a problem on the best of days, not to mention heading back towards London at the end of a Bank (Public) Holiday weekend - it was bizarre, but we weren’t complaining. What a fantastic time away! We really enjoyed going on holiday with Pete & Sueanne, & everything just seemed to gel really well & work out easily for us, apart from the weather. We all had an excellent time - I could definitely imagine living in Liverpool & being able to see all kinds of new rock music each week in my spare time. So much fun! Good luck to Liverpool in their competition for the City of Culture 2008 - they have our vote!

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Comments

[Marianne]

Great to see you really enjoyed your visit to Liverpool, didn't realize that music was still alive and well there. Don't know about the hairy stuff Vaughan, lovely to see your smiley face up close and personal. Love Mum