Went to Liverpool last weekend. Fabiana wanted to go sight-seeing there before she heads back to Brazil.

We stayed in Jurys Inn, which was good value, but a bit travelodgish, and breakfast was unpleasantly busy. Nice shiny new building though. Near the Albert Dock. There’s lots of shiny new buildings in Liverpool actually. Some of the shopping areas are spectacular, and we saw them adding the final stone cladding to outside of a snazzy new river front museum of Liverpool. We’ll have to go back for that one.

We also saw the modern (but not quite so brand new) architecture of the Metropolitan cathedral. Seeing the bells ringing at the front was pretty cool. There’s another “Liverpool Cathedral” in Liverpool which is less well known I suppose, being as it’s a boring old normal cathedral, but we wandered over to check it out, and it was well worth it actually. It’s massive! We called in at the liverpool tate for some art too, but unfortunately left this until we were knackered and could hardly stand up any more.

We did those things on Sunday. Our priority had been to go see “the Beatles Story” museum. I vaguely remember wanting to go into this as a kid while the parents were dragging us around art galleries and boring shops in Albert docks. Didn’t go then, probably because it’s quite expensive. £12 for an adult. Not sure if it’s worth it really, but it was quite interesting.

It really does tell the “story” of the Beatles from beginning to end, which gives you a feel for what a bonkers time it was (the 60s I mean). The Beatles were lucky, as any band which reaches megastardom is, but they were lucky to have struck at just that time too, before we’d had any megastar bands before, and seemingly just as the world was ready for some cheeky chappies from Liverpool. I also learned the sad story of their manager Brian Epstein, who was a friendly, enthusiastic, supportive guiding force who did a brilliant job of launching them on the world stage, but eventually he died of an overdose of anti-depressants. The Beatles fell apart shortly after. You don’t really hear his tale as much as the John Lennon shooting thing.

Afterwards on the Saturday night we headed to the Cavern (where the Beatles played lots of gigs). We went into the cavern pub instead of the cavern club, but then I think I read that neither of them are really like the original anyway. Quite good though. Saw some live music.

After eating we found a chaotic street (here I think) full of drunken party goers surrounded on all sides by blaring music from pub/clubs. We went into one which was a 90s bar. A “90s” bar! Are we far enough away from the 90s to start having 90s bars?? The cheesy banging dance music brought back a few memories… yes apparently we are far enough away.