Sights in Liverpool
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Liverpool FC
Doff o' the cap to Evertonians and Beatle-maniacs, but no single institution represents the Mersey spirit and strong sense of identity more powerfully than Liverpool FC, England's most successful football club. Virtually unbeatable for much of the 1970s and '80s, they haven't won the league championship since 1990, but in 2005 they became European champions for the fifth time and followed it with an FA Cup in 2006.
The club's home is the marvellous Anfield, but plans are afoot to relocate to a new 60,000-capacity stadium a stone's throw away in Stanley Park before 2010. The experience of a live match is a memorable one, especially the sound of 40,000 fans singing 'You'll …
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Beatles Story
Liverpool's most popular museum won't illuminate any dark, juicy corners in the turbulent history of the world's most famous foursome – there's ne'er a mention of internal discord, drugs or Yoko Ono – but there's plenty of genuine memorabilia to keep a Beatles fan happy. Particularly impressive is the full-size replica Cavern Club (which was actually tiny) and the Abbey Rd studio where the lads recorded their first singles, while George Harrison's crappy first guitar (now worth half a million quid) should inspire budding, penniless musicians to keep the faith. The museum is also the departure point for the Yellow Duckmarine Tour.
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Everton FC
Liverpool's 'other' team are the blues of Everton FC, who may not have their rivals' winning pedigree but they're just as popular locally. Tours of Goodison Park run throughout the year except on the Friday before home matches.
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Speke Hall
This diagonally patterned Tudor home dates from 1490-1612, and is filled with gorgeously timbered and plastered rooms. The house contains several 'priest's holes', where the hall's sympathetic owners hid Roman Catholic priests during the anti-Catholic 16th and 17th centuries.
A marvellous example of an Elizabethan half-timbered hall, Speke Hall was formerly surrounded by thousands of acres of land, but these days all that remains is the drive and an oasis of meticulously maintained gardens; the hall's Chapel Farm became the nucleus of nearby Liverpool Airport. A bus runs from Lime St to Speke Hall, but the walk from the bus stop is about a kilometre and a half.
Tours to Pa…
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Walker Art Gallery
Liquid brown eyes, luscious long hair and an enigmatic smile... No, we're not talking George Harrison circa 1965 - we're talking about all those Pre-Raphaelite beauties on show at Liverpool's superb Walker Art Gallery. Visual treats include Rossetti's Dante's Dream, Millais' Lorenzo & Isabella and Holman Hunt's The Awakening Conscience.
Other classic Victoriana includes Lord Leighton's Perseus & Andromeda and WF Yeames' And when did you last see your father? The gallery also has an important collection of Italian, Flemish and Impressionist artworks, and more recent icons include Hockney's much-copied Peter getting out of Nick's pool. The Liverpool Museum next door offers …
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Merseyside Maritime Museum
The story of one of the world's great ports is the theme of this excellent museum and, believe us, it's a graphic and compelling page-turner. One of the many great exhibits is Emigration to a New World, which tells the story of nine million emigrants and their efforts to get to North America and Australia; the walk-through model of a typical ship shows just how tough conditions on board really were.
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Liverpool Cathedral
Liverpool's Anglican cathedral is a building of superlatives. Not only is it Britain's largest church; it's also the world's largest Anglican cathedral, and it's all thanks to Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, who made its construction his life's work. Sir Scott also gave us the red telephone box and the Southwark Power Station in London, now the Tate Modern. The central bell is the world's third-largest (with the world's highest and heaviest peal), while the organ, with its 9765 pipes, is likely the world's largest operational model.
The visitor centre features the Great Space, a 10-minute, panoramic high-definition movie about the history of the cathedral. It's followed by your o…
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World Museum
Natural history, science and technology are the themes of thes sprawling World Museum, whose exhibits range from birds of prey to space exploration. It also includes the country's only free planetarium.
This vastly entertaining and educational museum is divided into four major sections: the Human World, one of the top anthropological collections in the country; the Natural World, which includes a new aquarium as well as live insect colonies; Earth, a geological treasure trove; and Space & Time, which includes the planetarium. Highly recommended.
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Fact Media Centre
Proof that Ropewalks has more to offer than just booze and bars, this media centre - whose acronym stands for Foundation for Art & Creative Technology - showcases film and new media such as digital art.
Two galleries feature constantly changing exhibitions and three screens show the latest arthouse releases - although we've noticed that the odd mainstream release has crept into the schedule, proof that financial pressures often override creative intent. There's also a bar and cafe.
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Albert Dock
Liverpool's biggest tourist attraction is Albert Dock, 2.75 hectares of water ringed by a colonnade of enormous cast-iron columns and impressive five-storey warehouses that make up the country's largest collection of protected buildings, and now a World Heritage Site. A fabulous development programme has really brought the dock to life; here you'll find several outstanding museums and an extension of London's Tate Gallery, as well as a couple of top-class restaurants and bars.
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National Conservation Centre
Ever wonder how art actually gets restored? Find out at this terrific conservation centre, housed in a converted railway goods depot. Hand-held audio wands help tell the story, but the real fun is actually attempting a restoration technique with your own hands. Sadly, our trembling paws weren't allowed near anything of value – that was left to the real experts, whose skills are pretty amazing.
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Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King
Known colloquially as Paddy's Wigwam, Liverpool's Catholic cathedral is a mightily impressive modern building that looks like a soaring concrete teepee, hence its nickname. It was completed in 1967 according to the design of Sir Frederick Gibberd, and after the original plans by Sir Edwin Lutyens, whose crypt is inside. The central tower frames the world's largest stained-glass window, created by John Piper and Patrick Reyntiens.
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St George's Hall
Arguably Liverpool's most impressive building is the Grade I–listed St George's Hall, a magnificent example of neoclassical architecture that is as imposing today as it was when it was completed in 1854. Curiously, it was built as law courts and a concert hall – presumably a judge could pass sentence and then relax to a string quartet. Today it serves as an all-purpose cultural and civic centre, hosting concerts, corporate gigs and a host of other civic get-togethers; it is also the focal point of any city-wide celebration. Tours of the hall are run in conjunction with the tourist office; the tour route can vary depending on what's going on in the building.
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Tate Liverpool
Touted as the home of modern art in the north, this gallery features a substantial checklist of 20th-century artists across its four floors, as well as touring exhibitions from the mother ship on London's Bankside. But it's all a little sparse, with none of the energy we'd expect from the world-famous Tate.
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Combined Headquarters of the Western Approaches
The Combined Headquarters of the Western Approaches, the secret command centre for the Battle of the Atlantic, was abandoned at the end of the war with virtually everything left intact. You can get a good glimpse of the labyrinthine nerve centre of Allied operations.
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Pier Head
The area to the north of Albert Dock is known as Pier Head, after a stone pier built in the 1760s. This is still the departure point for ferries across the River Mersey, and was, for millions of migrants, their final contact with European soil.
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Liverpool War Museum
The secret command centre for the Battle of the Atlantic, the Western Approaches, was abandoned at the end of the war with virtually everything left intact. You can get a good glimpse of the labyrinthine nerve centre of Allied operations, including the all-important map room, where you can imagine playing a real-life, full-scale version of Risk.
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International Slavery Museum
Museums are, by their very nature, like a still of the past, but the extraordinary International Slavery Museum resonates very much in the present. It reveals slavery's unimaginable horrors – including Liverpool's own role in the triangular slave trade – in a clear and uncompromising manner. It does this through a remarkable series of multimedia and other displays, and it doesn't baulk at confronting racism, slavery's shadowy ideological justification for this inhumane practice.
The history of slavery is made real through a series of personal experiences, including a carefully kept ship's log and captain's diary. These tell the story of one slaver's experience on a typ…
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FACT
Proof that Ropewalks isn't all about booze and bars, this media centre is all about film and new media such as digital art. Two galleries feature constantly changing exhibitions and three screens show the latest art-house releases, although we've noticed that the odd mainstream release has crept into the schedule – financial pressures overriding creative intent? There's also a bar and cafe.
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Bugworld Experience
Get up close and personal with 36 different species of bug and insect by clambering around six distinctive habitats; see the world from their eyes; and, for an extra special treat, sample some oven-baked tarantula, chilli locusts or a meal worm pancake. This is just part of the fun at this brand new interactive museum, which will surely have the kids pestering you to buy a book on insects and their funny habits when you're done.
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World of Glass
Winner of a tourism award in 2006, World of Glass explores the history of glass-making at the old Pilkington factory. See live glass-blowing demonstrations and multisensory special-effects shows, explore the old furnace's underground tunnels and get lost in a maze of mirrors. There's also a collection of rare and beautiful glass pieces from around the world.
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