Lively Liverpool

We got a taxi to our hotel in Liverpool after arriving by train from London. The hotel we stayed at was a little bit out of the central city (Kensington) and it showed. Lots of the buildings we drove past were either boarded up, or run down. Luckily our accommodation turned out to be decent even if the surrounding area wasn’t. The central city area wasn’t like this luckily, and turned out to be quite nice. We took a few pictures that you can see here.

After unpacking, we took a wander into the city. At first we thought that the place was deserted, but as we got into the centre we found the opposite. There were throngs of drunk people packing the streets and large stages and side shows being taken down. We had unknowingly arrived during the busiest weekend of the year for Liverpool: The Matthew Street Festival.
As we walked through the streets just after the musical acts had finished for the day, smells of beer, both spilt and humanly processed assaulted our nostrils. It was like being back at the end of year university Stein again. We wandered among the partying crowds for a while before heading down to the nicely done up Albert docks to take a look around.

We headed into the city early the next morning to take a look around a bit. The streets were comparatively empty except for a few other tourists and lots of event organising teams getting things ready for the next set of festivities that were starting at midday. After looking around the streets, we headed over to the huge structure of the Liverpool Cathedral. The cathedral was built only built very recently (1904-1978) and is simply huge. I’d have to say that due to the immense size and cleanliness of the place (because it’s new), it is the most awe inspiring cathedral we’ve visited so far. We also went up the tower which houses the heaviest and highest set of peal bells in the world, and took photos of city from up top.

The huge, empty belly of the cathedral reminded me of my huge empty belly, so we went to lunch. The Philharmonic pub was our destination (as suggested by my cousin’s husband, Gary) and we got a good lunch and a beer each in the slightly tired yet over the top decorated pub. It also had pink marble urinals in the men’s bathroom (sorry no pictures of that, I didn’t want to give the wrong impression).
Next stop was yet another cathedral; the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral which was built in a much more modern style, but is just about as big as its cousin. It’s completely circular inside and quite interesting to walk around and see all the little side chapels hidden away inside.

Since the festivities were well underway, we decided to check some out, so we headed to the main stage where the Antarctic Monkeys (a tribute band for the Arctic Monkeys) were playing. They sounded almost authentic, but just didn’t look quite right as they looked about 10 years too old. The crowd was huge though, and most of them were getting into it. After a few songs, we checked out the World Museum Liverpool next door which is worth a look, especially as its free.

We boarded the train the next morning and headed toward York.