Liverpool hits the right note
Music memories are everywhere but the Scouse city is also home to museums, a growing food scene and, of course, the iconic Anfield
ABITING wind has swept in from the Irish Sea, blowing all the harder up the Mersey. A group of elderly Liverpudlians aboard our river explorer cruise know its origins, joking that they have Irish heritage and no axe to grind.
Up to 75 per cent of Liverpool’s population can trace their ancestry to Ireland. We — together with Welsh immigrants — are credited with gifting the city the lilting Scouse dialect.
Hearing their accents, I wonder why they were out here with a boatload of outof-town tourists on this bitterly cold March morning.
‘Oh,’ explains Julie, introducing her husband, ‘Tom and myself were courting on the fish & chip shuffle cruise out here when the Beatles were the main act. We come back for anniversaries remembering those days.’
They jived to the Beatles and to Gerry And The Pacemakers, whose iconic hit Ferry Cross the Mersey is forever anchored in the Liverpool psyche, back in the day.
Balding men in the group remember their mop-top copycat Beatles hair and spending their wages on the latest ‘clobber’. Wives and partners, wrapped up in winter coats, sensibly-shod feet planted on the wooden decks, reminisce about buying all that pancake makeup and eyeliner, getting done up in their miniskirts and tight ribbed tops, dancing on pointy black patent stiletto heels.
‘We were the bees’ knees down in the Cavern Club, we screamed and shouted the loudest,’ Julie’s sister chuckles.
That’s the thing about Liverpool, a city with music memories oozing from every crevice — everyone claims a nostalgic part of its past.
Ask anyone you meet, from the female ex-steward at the home of the ‘Reds’ in Anfield, whose family were friends with Paul McCartney’s people, to a worker at the Beatles Experience, and real-life stories swirl about John, Paul, George and Ringo.
My tour of the Beatles Story museum is none the less fascinating for knowing most of it already — their rise to fame from humble beginnings, Beatlemania, the mass hysteria, the break up of the band and the sanitised accounts of manager Brian Epstein’s life and death.
There Are Places I Remember, the autobiographical song about John Lennon’s life, brings a tear to my eye. Emerging from the all-white exhibit dedicated to his memory at the end of the tour, I stop to chat a minute with one of the workers about visitors’ reactions to this enduring city attraction. Michelle has enjoyed working here for many years.
‘When the Beatles were starting out, they never had any money, my mother used to pay for their coffee,’ she reveals. ‘Mum offered them a room in her flat because they had nowhere to rehearse but it was on the top floor and they couldn’t haul their equipment all the way up. After they were famous, she used to say she nearly had the biggest band of all time getting a start in her place.’
Liverpool’s regeneration was a work in progress when I visited decades back. Famed for the Fab Four, the city’s football clubs and Aintree, home of the Grand National, there’s a lot more to this friendly, many-sided, destination I discover on this short stay.
The British Music Experience housed in the Cunard building, one of the ‘Three Graces’ imposing landmarks — where a Spice Girls 30th anniversary exhibition runs until September — along with other superb museums did not exist then.
Kevin McManus, head of Liverpool UNESCO city of music, tells how the immense success of the Eurovision festival it hosted for Ukraine in 2023 created a big tourism bounce and much goodwill. That has inspired the city to stage a ‘Malmo on the Mersey’ festival next month during this year’s contest. An open invitation has been extended to displaced people from Ukraine and to fans from across Europe who can’t get to Sweden to party in Liverpool instead.
Redundant when maritime trade ceased, Royal Albert Dock is an entertainment and restaurant hub in a city with scores of listed buildings, public artwork and the largest number of museums outside the British capital. Nightlife and quirky cafes are found in the colourful graffiti-laden Baltic district. The Georgian quarter around Hope Street, which has the city’s two cathedrals at either end, is all about gentrification and showing off the mix of interesting architectural styles.
ICHECK into the Titanic Hotel (titanichotel liverpool.com) on Stanley Dock for my two-night stay. A luxurious renovated warehouse, it is full of character and with maritime memorabilia. Though it’s a fair hike away from the city centre, another plus to this upscale hotel, if you are a Liverpool supporter, is that the team often stays here on match days.
In the arched brick cellars that used to hold barrels filled with rum in the immense warehouse, now the hotel’s Romanesque chic spa and hydro pool, I comb dim relaxation areas for a possible sighting of my Liverpool manager idol Jurgen Klopp, perhaps enjoying some pre match de-stress downtime. Sadly, though, I see neither him nor any of the current pin-ups.
Large high-ceilinged bedrooms and long, wide, dimlylit mysterious corridors mirror the vastness of the Titanic Hotel. Though registered here on Merseyside, the stricken ship never visited Liverpool.
The landmark Tobacco Warehouse opposite, a Victorian giant constructed with 27 million bricks — once the world’s largest brick-built structure — is at the heart of Liverpool Docks’ waterfront regeneration. We wander
into town, passing dilapidated streets and skeletal factories that were locations for Peaky Blinders and other TV hits. Some sites still await redevelopment among bonded warehouses and factories being repurposed for residential use.
Liverpool’s ongoing regeneration, dominated in the distance by the new £500 million (€580m) Everton football stadium, due for completion next year, spreads out below from our 360-degree view at the 18th floor Sky Bar on the roof of Innside hotel. It’s a good spot for cocktails and watching the sun set from Wales over across the Irish Sea.
Later, Scouse meets Scandinavia at Nord (nordrestaurant.co.uk) one of the newof wave restaurants forging a historic bond between the food which was originally influenced by Scandinavian seafarers who settled here many centuries ago.
The city is certainly having a moment on the culinary front. That term ’foodie paradise’ — alas so often unfounded — is no idle boast in Liverpool that nowadays offers a truly multicultural choice. From delicious spicy
Middle Eastern mezzes, including wicked veggie sharing plates — don’t miss the amazing disco cauliflower — at organic restaurant Maray on Albert Dock (maray.co.uk) to classic Scouse traditional slowcooked beef in gravy at Ma Boyle’s old alehouse and eatery (maboyles.co.uk) at Tower gardens close to Pier Head. Both are on my return wishlist. Paul Askew is one Liverpool’s great characters as well as being a renowned chef and owner of the high-end Art School restaurant (theartschoolrestaurant.co.uk).
‘Any great city needs a culture of good food and we have a restaurant scene here that is developing at an incredible rate of knots,’ he affirms. ‘We have great cooks and restaurants but we still want to win Liverpool’s first Michelin stars — as a city we’ve never had one.’
Art School is at the top of its game and here the glitterati mix with ordinary folk splurging out for a celebratory meal. Paul reveals that visiting club directors from the world’s top football sides playing the Reds are regulars for a pre-match lunch.
‘We kill them with kindness here, hoping we kill them afterwards on the pitch,’ he jokes. No footy fan should miss a tour of the city’s hallowed Liverpool FC at Anfield, especially like me followers of the Reds. As it’s a match day, players’ dressing rooms, their lounge and the famous tunnel are off limits but the reducedaccess tour is still absorbing. Our heads spin with the club’s successes in so many championship duels, we’re blinded by silverware in the museum and all the facts and figures on their star players and former managers.
Finding myself so close to heaven — the hallowed pitch — I lean against the gate on to it and nearly kiss the ground by default. Our guide, agile septuagenarian Mark, who is a walking encyclopaedia on the Reds, announces: ‘Jurgen told me you’re to stay off the grass.’
His tour is fascinating, especially insights on the pitch itself. Who would have guessed, especially a rookie, that there’s under-soil heating, the slight camber conceals sand for drainage and advanced technology ensures the players can do knee slides without ploughing up a furrow like in days of yore.
Bill Shankly’s statue guards the stadium, reminding us how the great manager took charge of a second division club in 1959 and made them English League champions within four years. The rest, as they say, is history so I stop to sing a few bars of Gerry And The Pacemakers’ 1963 hit anthem You’ll Never Walk Alone to the great man’s memory.
TRAVEL FACTS
Isabel Conway was a guest of the Carlton Hotel Dublin Airport (carltondublin airport.com), before catching the morning flight to Liverpool. Aer Lingus Regional (aerlingus.com), operated by Emerald Airlines, flies between Dublin and Liverpool up to twice daily, one-way fares from €29.99. Isabel was a guest of the Marketing Liverpool organisation and Emerald Airlines. Rooms at Titanic Hotel from €200 per night, see titanichotelliverpool. com.