With the concert, We had a late night last night, after midnight before we got to bed. We were laughing that it’s the first time we’ve been out in the dark since we’ve been in the UK, the days are so long here. So we slept a little later this morning and were a little later to breakfast than normal. However we will be early tomorrow as the breakfast room was chaotic. We had to wait for a short while as there were no tables and then waited for plates and food, I gave up on eggs in the end! However, we were very glad we handnt been an later as by the time we left the queue for a table was at least 30 groups long, they were lined all the way down the corridor to the lifts! It was a bet before ten when we left the hotel and walked down to the dock area. Liverpool has a fine maritime and shipping history and the river was lined with more than a dozen large docks. With the decline of the port the docks fell out of use but there has been a huge amount of work done to restore the area as a centre for museums, restaurants and galleries. As we walked down we could see all the fences and road closures in place for the music festival. Our first stop was the Beatles statue , the four lads striding out looking towards the river. Behind the. In the photo you can see two of the “Three Graces” , these are three magnificent buildings that line the waterfront. The Royal Liver building, the Cunard Building and the Port of Liverpool building.
We went on to the entrance of the British Music Experience which is located in the Cunard building. It’s is a museum that celebrates the modern British music industry, from wartime jazz until today. They had some wonderful things on display, including Queens drum kit and costumes worn by the Spice Girls, David Bowie and many other music greats.
The skies were quite grey as we walked down along the docks to the Merseyside Maritime Museum, as well as general history of Liverpools role in shipping it had two excellent areas devoted to the Lusitania and the Titanic.
We walked back up towards the Cavern club area, passing the Three Graces and other heritage buildings that have been converted to pubs etc. The Royal Liver building has huge copper birds mounted at the top of its spires, they’re the original “Liver Birds”.
The old Pumphouse is now a pub with the inevitable picture of John, Paul, George and Ringo on its walls! We lost count of the number of times we saw their faces during the rest of the day.
We wanted to return to the Cavern Club area to see some of the statues and locations when we could get near them to take a picture, it was impossible last night with the crowds!
We walked on further away fro the river until we arrived at the Walker Art Gallery. It has an outstanding collection, we spent a while wandering the galleries .
My leg was getting a bit sore by now, we’ve done a LOT of walking lately so we headed back to the hotel for a bit of a rest before dinner. We went down to have a drink I. The hotel bar which overlooks the waterfront and had a great view of the Liver Building and ended up staying in for a pasta dinner. A lazy end to our Liverpool day.
