The Meiklejohns took a short trip to Liverpool at the end of summer, after our early proper holiday. Thankfully we caught a few sunny days, with just one evening of torrential rain. After a painful start booking our lodgings (I got the dates wrong and the company didn't respond to a request to change them until they claimed it was too late for a refund) we drove down on a Monday morning and checked into our rooms at the alternative place, the Resident Hotel, on Seel Street, in the Ropewalks part of the city. These were surprisingly good: spacious, nice bathroom and even a kitchenette area with sink, fridge, kettle and microwave. We had a few hours to explore so headed out for the first of several long walks around the town.
On our first expedition out we wandered around the shops for a bit and found our way across to the cavern area. One thing we found was that the city is quite well contained, and it doesn't take long to walk about between different parts which seem quite far apart on the map. We took in the atmosphere in Matthew Street, then started queueing at the Casa Italia, recommended by a friend. It was taking too long though, so we gave up and headed back to our side of the city and eventually had dinner at the Fat Hippo, which did some nice burgers.
After this we walked up to the end of Bold Street and the bombed church there, looking pretty in the evening sunshine. Following the road downhill brought us to the Chinatown area, with lots of Chinese restaurants (of course) and a magificently decorated archway, along with some little lion statues guarding the area.
Just a bit further east brought us up to the Liverpool Cathedral, quite an imposing building, and currently hosting an exhibition by Anish Kapoor, so that's going to be our first visit in the morning.
Tuesday morning, and after waiting for Cate to emerge from her bedroom, we returned to the cathedral. It's pretty impressive inside: I loved the font of Damocles (see slideshow), but it was also enhanced by the sculpture exhibition from Anish Kapoor. There was a big red funnel thing in a black box, which you could also view from the inside, a bell shape with a vertical vane that slowly swept around it, a shiny trumpet shape that reflected the ceiling, and downstairs in the ladies chapel was a pregnant piece of marble. There's probably some meaning behind all these but I read up nothing on the subject or artist, so this was all just gut reaction.
Next we had booked tickets for the music museum down by the docks. This wasn't cheap to get in, but gave us a good hour or so of wandering round looking at the memorabilia from past decades, trying out the interactive exhibits, and even playing some musical instruments at the end, before exiting to the gift shop. They also had a decent wee cafe where we appreciated some lunch.
The music museum is close by the Beatles statue near the dock and the ferry terminal, and we took the chance of a few photos. By the next day the queue for those had grown substantially, so go at a quiet time of day if you want your picture taken with the Fab 4.
The Liverpool Muesum was nearby, and free, so that was our next stop. Lots of transport displays in here, and lots about life in Liverpool through the ages, including a model of a massive Catholic cathedral that never came to pass, and a nice Liver bird sculpture looking out over the Mersey.
We left Cate to wander into the Tate Liverpool gallery while Claire and I went back to let her have a nap, but she very quickly got bored. Apparently there were only two exhibitions and they were both about bricks.
We had some torrential rain in the evening, but ventured through it to the Mei Mei restaurant. Not too impressed with this. The food was decent, but service was slow, and it was expensive. Not sure if they charged us for the bowl of curry sauce they delivered unexpectedly right at the end of the meal, but it felt like I'd paid for the table next to us as well.
Wednesday was bright and sunny again, so we were out for more walking. First we found the Red Brick market, an indoor collection of tiny booths with all sorts of stuff for sale, mostly second hand or home made. Weirdly none of the sellers were present. You took what you wanted and paid at the counter at the front.
Onwards to look for some murals in the city. We found a painting of the Abbey Road zebra crossing on one wall, and a big pair of wings just a little further along the same road. Down by the big wheel on the dock we found the peace statue with musical instruments wound around it. We also spotted a number of odd animal statues around the town, which turned out to be the superlambanana, something of an imaginary genetic experiment and a cautionary tale about messing with nature. For some reason these have been adopted as a sort of mascot and can be found all over the city. I suppose the Liver bird being a made up concoction was a reasonable precedent.
Back to the Cavern district next, and we took time to find all the statues we could, including the dodgy Beatles statue in the underground shopping mall. Then we paid our £5 each to get into the Cavern Club. This has plenty of pictures and memorabilia, as you'd imagine, and had a good atmosphere about it, with live music playing throughout the day on its 2 stages.
Claire went back for a nap, exhausted with all the walking, and Cate and I took a drive to Strawberry Field. This has recently been done up by the Salvation Army, with an indoor story room (and a 75 minute audio-video presentation - sorry, we didn't listen to it all), cafe and shop, and some lovely gardens. I liked the bandstand made in the shape of a drum. Of course we got some photos of the gates.
Next, Penny Lane wasn't far away, so we stopped off there just to get a picture of the road sign.
We had to dial it back a little on the food expenses, so had dinner at the Shipping Forecast, just around the corner from our hotel, and finished our evening on the little park next to the Liverpool One shopping centre down by the river.
The plan on Thursday was to maybe stop off on the way home for a nice big lunch, but the trip turned into a long haul as a crash had shut the M6 and we were diverted off into the slowest queue of traffic ever, near Kendal. After 4 extra hours we made it home for some chips from Paul's.