Liverpool Information

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- - - Liverpool Information - - -

Once the empire's second city, LIVERPOOL spent too many of the twentieth-century postwar years struggling against adversity. Things are looking up at last, as economic and social regeneration brightens the centre and old docks. Yet - even as any short-term visitor to the city could tell you - nothing ever broke Liverpool's extraordinary spirit of community, a spirit that emerged strongly in the aftermath of the Hillsborough football stadium disaster of 1989, when the deaths of 95 Liverpool supporters seemed to unite the whole city. Indeed, acerbic wit and loyalty to one of the city's two football teams are the linchpins of Scouse culture - though Liverpool makes great play of its musical heritage, which is reasonable enough from the city that produced The Beatles.

Although it gained its charter from King John in 1207, Liverpool remained a humble fishing village for half a millennium until the silting-up of Chester and the booming slave trade prompted the building of the first dock in 1715. From then until the abolition of slavery in Britain in 1807, Liverpool was the apex of the slaving triangle in which firearms, alcohol and textiles were traded for African slaves, who were then shipped to the Caribbean and America. The holds were filled with tobacco, raw cotton and sugar for the return journey. After the abolition of the trade, the port continued to grow into a seven-mile chain of docks, not only for freight but also to cope with wholesale European emigration , which saw nine million people from half of Europe leave for the Americas and Australasia between 1830 and 1930. Some never made it further than Liverpool and contributed to a five-fold increase in population in fifty years. An even larger boost came with immigration from the Caribbean and China, and especially Ireland in the wake of the potato famine in 1845.

The docks were busy until the middle of the twentieth century when a number of factors led to the port's decline : cheap air fares saw off the lucrative liner business; trade with the dwindling empire declined, while European traffic boosted southeastern ports at Tilbury, Harwich and Southampton; and containerization meant reduced demand for handling and warehousing. The arrival of car manufacturing plants in the 1960s, including Ford at Halewood, stemmed the decline for a while, but during the 1970s and 1980s Liverpool became a byword for British economic malaise as its fundamental businesses withered and died.

There's been a renaissance of sorts since the 1990s as EU development funds and millennium money have kick-started various projects. Financial services, information technology and biotechnology are all major employers while the city is the "call centre" capital of the UK. Compared to the wholesale redevelopment of neighbouring Manchester, the city still has a fair hill to climb but there is at last a welcome new confidence about Liverpool. It's rebranded itself as the "festival city" - on the back of which, it's making a bid to be European Capital of Culture for 2008

The City

Liverpool has a legacy of magnificent municipal and industrial buildings - best seen en masse from across the river or on the Mersey ferry - and these are the chief attractions of the cityscape, along with its two famous cathedrals . The city's mercantile past and aspects of its recent history are well covered in a number of fine museums and galleries, especially in the rejuvenated warehouses of Albert Dock , which form the largest grouping of Grade I listed buildings in the country. The tourist offices can book you onto a variety of guided walks and tours (from Ł3), or make your own way using the themed trail leaflets on sale in the offices.

- - - Arrival Information and City Transport - - -

Mainline trains pull in to Lime Street station, while the suburban Merseyrail system (for trains from Chester) calls at four underground stations in the city, including Lime Street. National Express buses use the station on Norton Street, northeast of Lime Street. Local buses depart from a variety of terminals: Queen Square (for city centre, Pier Head and Chester services); Paradise Street Bus Station (southbound and a few northbound services); and St Thomas Street (eastbound and cross-river). Liverpool airport - now officially named after John Lennon - is eight miles southeast of the city centre. From outside the main entrance, the Airport Express #500 bus (every 30min, 6am-1am; Ł2) runs directly into the city centre, stopping at all major bus terminals and at Lime Street. The slower, cheaper local bus #80A (every 15-30min 6am-11pm) makes the same journey, or a taxi to Lime Street costs around Ł12. Ferry arrivals - from the Isle of Man, Dublin and Belfast - dock at the terminals just north of Pier Head, close to Albert Dock and not far from James Street Merseyrail station.

Tourist information is available from two offices: the Queen's Square Centre centrally located in Queen Square (Mon-Sat 9am-5.30pm, Sun 10.30am-4.30pm) and the Albert Dock Centre at the Atlantic Pavilion (daily 10am-5.30pm), which both share the same telephone enquiries number (tel 0906/680 6886) and website ( ). Both sell the National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside (NMGM; ) Eight Pass (Ł3) which gives unlimited access into eight local museums for twelve months.

The local transport authority is Merseytravel , which co-ordinates all buses, trains and ferries. There's a telephone enquiry line (tel 0151/236 7676; daily 8am-8pm) or visit the Merseytravel information office inside the Queen's Square Centre. Daily off-peak, zonal Saveaway tickets (Ł1.80-Ł3.20) for unlimited use on most city buses, trains and ferries are available from post offices, newsagents and the Merseytravel offices. The amphibious half-truck-half-boat Duck Tour (mid-Feb to Christmas, daily every hour from 10.30am; tel 0151/708 7799; tickets Ł9) departs from Gower Street, in front of Albert Dock, and trundles around the city centre before splashing down into the water for a spot of aquatic sightseeing.

- - - The Beatles in Liverpool - - -

No Liverpool band is ever likely to eclipse The Beatles . Mathew Street, ten minutes' walk west of Lime Street station, is where The Cavern used to be - once the womb of Merseybeat, it's become a little enclave of Beatles nostalgia, most of it bogus and typified by the Cavern Walks Shopping Centre , with an awful bronze statue of the boys in the atrium. The Cavern itself was where the band was first spotted by Brian Epstein; the club was partly demolished in 1973, though a latterday successor, the Cavern Club at 10 Mathew St ( ), complete with souvenir shop, was rebuilt on half of the original site, using, it's claimed, the original bricks. The Cavern Pub , immediately across the way, boasts a coiffed Lennon lounging against the wall and an exterior "Wall of Fame", highlighting both the names of all the bands who appeared at the club between 1957 and 1973 (etched into the bricks) and brass discs commemorating every Liverpool No. 1 chart-topper since 1952.

At the Albert Dock, The Beatles Story in the Britannia Vaults (daily: April-Sept 10am-6pm; Oct-March 10am-5pm; Ł7.95) traces The Beatles' rise from the early days at The Cavern to their disparate solo careers. Dedicated pilgrims will get more from the two-hour Magical Mystery Tour (daily tours; book through Cavern City Tours, tel 0151/236 9091, or Mersey Tourism, tel 0151/709 3285; Ł10.95; Ł15 with The Beatles Story), which leaves Albert Dock, visiting Strawberry Fields (a Salvation Army home), Penny Lane (an ordinary suburban street) and the terraced houses where the lads grew up. One of these, 20 Forthlin Rd , home of the McCartney family from 1955-1964, has been preserved by the National Trust and is open to visitors who duly tramp round the 1950s terraced house where John and Paul wrote songs and where Paul's mother Mary died. The house is only accessible on a pre-booked minibus tour (June-Oct Wed-Sat; Ł5.50; NT), which leaves six times daily from Speke Hall and the Albert Dock - the price includes the tour, the minibus to Forthlin Road and free access to Speke Hall grounds. Beatlemania is wholeheartedly celebrated on August Bank Holiday Monday (the last Monday of the month) at the culmination of the annual International Beatles Week and Mathew Street Festival , filling the town centre with wannabe moptops.

- - - Anfield, Goodison Park and Aintree - - -

Liverpool's most popular recreational activity, bar none, is football . Liverpool football club plays at Anfield (ticket office tel 0151/260 8680, ) in front of some of the nation's most loyal supporters. There's a popular tour around the well-stocked museum, trophy room and dressing rooms (daily 10am-5pm; museum and tour Ł8.50, museum only Ł5; booking essential; tel 0151/260 6677). Everton, the city's less glamorous and recently far less successful side, commands equally intense devotion at Goodison Park (ticket office tel 0151/330 2300; tours Mon, Wed, Fri & Sun 11am & 2pm; Ł5.50; booking advised; ). The first Saturday in April is Grand National Day at Aintree - the "World's Greatest Steeplechase". The race is the culmination of a meeting that starts on the previous Thursday, with prices for entry into the grounds ranging from Ł7 to Ł65. Catch the Merseyrail to Aintree and buy a ticket on the gate or book on 0151/522 2929. A Visitor Centre (tel 0151/522 2921, ) lets you ride the National on a race simulator as part of a race course tour (Ł7).

- - - Eating and Drinking - - -

Liverpool's dining scene is slowly shifting up a gear and there's now a good choice of classy restaurants alongside a fine selection of cafés and budget places to eat. Fashionable café-bars are muscling in on the action too, and you won't want for a decent cup of coffee in most parts of the city. Liverpool's pubs and bars stay open later than most, with many serving until 1am or 2am. Fleet Street, Slater Street and Wood Street have seen most development, with ground zero at Concert Square (off Bold Street), where drinkers spill out on to the terraces from a variety of cafés, dance bars and theme pubs. Victoria Street in the business district is another fast-developing area.

Nightlife and Entertainment

You'll catch regular gigs at any of the live music venues detailed under "Pubs, bars and clubs", and Liverpool has some excellent annual music festivals and events , namely the Summer Pops (July) and the Party at the Pier (August) for big-name pop and rock, and Liverpool Now (October) which sees local bands playing in various venues around the city. The evening paper, the Liverpool Echo , has listings of what's going on, or pick up flyers in the shops, bars and cafés.

Cafés and Café-bars

Beluga Bar 40 Wood St. Hip basement space that's great for just a drink, or come to eat - there's a changing, seasonal menu. Opens at 5pm.

Blue Edward Pavilion, Albert Dock. Brick-vaulted café-bar with upstairs grill - a useful stop for a cheap lunch, cappuccino, a pasta or tapas dinner or a late-night drink.

Bluecoat Café Bar Bluecoat Chambers, School Lane. Mainly vegetarian food - salad bar, baked potatoes and dips - served throughout the day. Closed Sun.

Espresso Exchange 6 Victoria St. Locally owned espresso bar with great coffee, snacks and sandwiches.

Everyman Bistro 9-11 Hope St. Long-standing theatre-basement hangout with quiche, pizza and salad-type meals for around a fiver. Closed Sun.

Life Café 1a Bold St. The eighteenth-century Lyceum Library makes a grand backdrop for this late-opening café-bar, serving pasta, pizza, salads, Thai curries and sandwiches.

The Platinum Lounge Beetham Plaza, 25 The Strand. Feeling smooth? Come right on in to the Liverpool lounge scene where you'll need a bulging wallet and a taste for cocktails.

The Refectory Liverpool Anglican Cathedral, St James' Mount. Appetizing snacks and lunches under the Gothic arches.

Tabac 126 Bold St. A new style for an old favourite sees Tabac shed its vaguely hippy leanings and emerge as a contemporary café-bar, serving a wide-ranging menu.

Taste Tate Gallery, Albert Dock. Industrial-lite café-bar at the Tate - bangers and mash, salads and sandwiches during the day, grills and roast vegetables at night.

Pubs, Bars and Clubs

The Baltic Fleet 33a Wapping. Restored pub with age-old shipping connections. It's got a great period feel and is known for its fine food and local beer.

Brewery Tap , Stanhope St. Enjoyable Victorian brewery pub where you can sample Liverpool's own Cains beers.

The Cavern Club 10 Mathew St tel 0151/236 1964. The self-styled "most famous club in the world" puts on live bands Thursday to Sunday.

Cream Wolstenholme Square, off Hanover St, tel 0151/709 1693, . Liverpool's - possibly Britain's - best club, featuring big DJ names. Sponsors the ever-popular August bank holiday "Creamfields" dance festival.

The Dispensary 87 Renshaw St. Entirely synthetic but highly sympathetic re-creation of a Victorian pub using rescued and antique wood, glass and tiles.

The Late Room Life Café, 1a Bold St tel 0151/707 2333. Basement lounge featuring stand-up comedy, gigs and club nights, Thurs-Sun.

The Lomax and L2 11-13 Hotham St tel 0151/707 9977. Indie band venue with nightly gigs by local and touring acts, and weekend club nights.

The Philharmonic 36 Hope St. A superb, traditional watering-hole where the main attractions - the beer aside - are the mosaic floors, tiling, gilded wrought-iron gates and the marble decor in the gents.

Pumphouse Inn Albert Dock. Restored heritage building at the dock, nice for a waterside pint and views of the Liver Building.

The Vernon Arms 69 Dale St. Traditional but smart city-centre boozer with a choice of real ales and posh pub food.

Ye Cracke 13 Rice St. Crusty backstreet pub off Hope Street, much loved by the young Lennon, and with a great jukebox.

Restaurants

Casa Italia 40 Stanley St tel 0151/227 5774. Lively trattoria with better than average pasta and pizza dishes. Inexpensive to Moderate.

Far East 27-35 Berry St tel 0151/709 6072. Most reliable of Liverpool's Cantonese eating houses, with authentic dim sum (noon-6pm), noodles, casseroles and rice plates. Moderate.

The Lower Place Philharmonic Hall, Hope St tel 0151/210 1955. Fast winning friends with its chargrilling, oven-roasting, sun-drying ways. Closed Sun. Expensive.

El Macho Hope St tel 0151/708 6644. Longstanding Mexican restaurant that's more about good times and margarita consumption than memorable food. Moderate.

Number Seven Café 7 Falkner St tel 0151/709 9633. Highly popular, laid-back restaurant with a daily changing blackboard menu of contemporary flavours. Moderate.

Simply Heathcotes Beetham Plaza, 25 The Strand tel 0151/236 3536. Lancastrian magic - roast chump of lamb and Goosnargh duckling feature among other delights. Expensive.

Valparaiso 4 Hardman St tel 0151/708 6036. Chilean and other Latin-American dishes, with wines to match. Closed Sun & Mon. Moderate.

Ziba 15-19 Berry St tel 0151/708 8870. Stylish space (formerly a car showroom) now serving cutting-edge Modern British food along with risottos, Oriental flourishes and vegetarian specialities. Closed Sun eve. Expensive.

- - - Listings - - -

Airport tel 0151/288 4000, . Flights to Belfast, Dublin, the Isle of Man, Madrid, Barcelona, Palma, Nice, Malaga and Amsterdam.

Banks and exchanges
American Express, 54 Lord St tel 0151/702 4501;
Thomas Cook, 75 Church St tel 0151/552 1300.
You can also change money at the two tourist offices, the two main post offices and at the airport.

Books Most of the bookshops are along Bold Street:
Dillons at no. 14,
Waterstones at no. 52 and
the more radical News from Nowhere at no. 112.

Buses Merseytravel tel 0151/236 7676.

Car rental
Alamo, 278 East Prescott Rd, Knotty Ash tel 0151/259 1316;
Avis, 113 Mulberry St tel 0151/709 4737;
easyRentacar tel 0906/586 0586;
Europcar, 8 Brownlow Hill tel 0151/709 7563 and
airport tel 0151/448 1652;
Hertz, airport tel 0151/486 7444.

Ferries
Isle of Man Steam-Packet Company for ferries/Sea Cats tel 08705/523523;
Mersey Ferries tel 0151/330 1444;
Norse Irish Ferries tel 0151/944 1010.

Hospital Royal Liverpool University Hospital, Prescot Street tel 0151/706 2000.

Internet Planet Electra Internet Café, 36 London Rd tel 0151/708 0303. Daily 10am-6pm.

Laundry Liver Launderette, 170 Aigburth Rd & 104 Prescot Rd.

Left luggage Lime Street Station, daily 7am-10pm.

Pharmacy
Boots, Clayton Square tel 0151/709 4711;
Moss Pharmacy, 68-70 London Rd tel 0151/709 5271 (daily until 11pm).

Police HQ, Canning Place tel 0151/709 6010.

Post offices
City-centre offices at 23-33 Whitechapel;
The Lyceum, 1 Bold St. Open Mon-Sat 8.30am-6pm.

Taxis
Mersey Cabs tel 0151/298 2222;
Davy Liver tel 0151/709 4646.

- - - Arts and Concerts - - -

The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, up with Manchester's Hallé as the northwest's best, dominates the city's classical music scene and often plays at the Philharmonic Hall and the Everyman Theatre. Theatre is also well entrenched in the city, at a variety of venues. Annual festivals include the Hope Street Festival (June); a celebration of African arts and music in Africa Oye (June); the Summer Pops (July), when the Royal Philharmonic and top pop names perform beneath a huge marquee on King's Dock; the Brouhaha Street Theatre Festival (August), which involves performances by a host of European theatre groups; and the Mathew Street Festival (August), a free shindig, with local and national street performers playing the best of The Beatles.

Bluecoat Arts Centre School Lane tel 0151/709 5297, . Eclectic mix of events - drama, dance, poetry, comedy, music and art exhibitions.

Everyman Theatre and Playhouse Hope St tel 0151/709 4776, . Drama, concerts, exhibitions, dance and musical performances.

Liverpool Empire Lime St tel 0151/606 3536, . The city's largest theatre, a venue for touring West End shows, opera, ballet and music.

Philharmonic Hall Hope St tel 0151/709 3789, . Home of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Shows classic films once a month.

Royal Court Theatre Roe St tel 0151/709 4321, . Art Deco theatre and concert hall, which sees regular pop and rock concerts among other events.

Unity Theatre Hope Place tel 0151/709 4988, . Puts on the city's most adventurous range of contemporary works.

- - - Explore Liverpool - - -

Albert Dock

Albert Dock , five minutes' walk south of the Pier Head, was built in 1846 when Liverpool's port was a world leader. It started to decline at the beginning of the last century, as the new deep-draught ships were unable to berth here, and last saw service in 1972. A decade later the site was given a complete scrubdown and refit. Billed as "Liverpool's Historic Waterfront", it's a type of rescued urban heritage that's been copied throughout the country, but rarely as successfully as here. There's free parking - follow the city-centre signs - and buses every twenty minutes during the day from Queen Square bus station. All the museums have admission charges: the Maritime Museum, HM Customs Museum and Museum of Liverpool Life are part of the NMGM Eight Pass scheme, while the Waterfront Pass (Ł9.99) saves you money if you want to see the lot.

A trip through the Merseyside Maritime Museum (daily 10am-5pm; Ł3, free with NMGM Eight Pass), filling one wing of the Albert Dock, can easily take two hours. Spread over four floors, it has sections on the history of Liverpool's evolution as a port and shipbuilding centre, and models of seacraft - from Samoan rafts to opulent passenger liners. An illuminating display details Liverpool's role as a springboard for over nine million emigrants - the Irish potato famine and a multiplicity of European wars, combined with the lure of gold and free land, brought people scurrying here to buy their passage to North America or Australia. On board the ships - there's a walk-through example - people were packed into dark, noisy ranks of bunks where they "puffed, groaned, swore, vomited, prayed, moaned and cried". The museum is at its best in its "Transatlantic Slavery" exhibit, which banishes years of Eurocentric excuses to expose the true horror of the exploitation of African slaves who were kidnapped, abused and sold as property. The conditions they endured on the transatlantic voyage are illustrated by a reconstruction of a slave ship, echoing with haunting voices reading from diaries of slaves and slavers.

The neighbouring Tate Gallery Liverpool (Tues-Sun 10am-6pm; free, special exhibitions usually Ł3-5; ) is the country's national collection of modern art in the north. Popular retrospectives and an ever-changing display of individual works are its bread-and-butter, and there's also a full programme of events, talks and tours. The Museum of Liverpool Life (daily 10am-5pm; Ł3, free with NMGM Eight Pass) lies across the dock. Particularly revealing about the hardships that have moulded the resilient Scouse character, it has excellent sections on the city's traditional work, with investigations of the lives of ordinary shipwrights, stevedores, carters and seamen. In the popular-culture sections, Merseyside football gets good coverage, as does Aintree's Grand National, music from the Sixties to the present day, the homegrown soap Brookside and local writers, including Alan Bleasdale, Willy Russell, Beryl Bainbridge and Carla Lane.

Around Lime Street

Emerging from Lime Street Station - whose cast-iron train shed was the largest in the world on its completion in 1867 - you can't miss St George's Hall , one of Britain's finest Greek Revival buildings. Once Liverpool's concert hall and crown courts, its tunnel-vaulted Great Hall is open to the public for monthly craft and antique fairs and for daily guided tours in summer (late-July & Aug Mon-Sat 10.30am-4.30pm), when the exquisite floor, tiled with thirty thousand precious Minton tiles, is on show.

Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery on William Brown Street (Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun noon-5pm; Ł3, free with NMGM Eight Pass) houses one of the country's finest provincial art collections, with pieces dating from the fourteenth century to the present day. Major renovations have restored many of the galleries and added new space for temporary exhibitions. There's often a good range of Italian work on show, together with works by Rembrandt, Rubens and other seventeenth-century masters, but here, as in Manchester, British painting occupies centre stage. The gallery also displays exhibits from its large applied-art collection - glassware, ceramics, precious metals, and sculpted furniture, largely retrieved from the homes of the city's early industrial businessmen. Contemporary work floods the building during the John Moores Exhibition, usually held here from October of odd-numbered years to the following January.

Further along William Brown Street the Liverpool Museum (Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun noon-5pm; Ł3, free with NMGM Eight Pass) has also had a major overhaul and certain sections may still be closed during your visit. What is on display is eclectic to say the least, from tarantulas to a space rocket, and it's an appealing diversity which grows on you the longer you stay. The museum had its origins in the natural history collections bequeathed by the Earl of Derby in the mid-nineteenth century, and these have subsequently been augmented by some superior fossil, natural habitat and evolution exhibits. Make time too for the Planetarium (Ł1); there's also a café.

Cathedrals

On the hill behind Lime Street, off Mount Pleasant, rises the funnel-shaped Catholic Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King (Mon-Sat 8am-6pm, Sun 8am-5pm; free), denigratingly known as "Paddy's Wigwam" and the "Mersey Funnel". Built in the 1960s in the wake of the revitalizing Second Vatican Council, it was raised on top of the tentative beginnings of Sir Edwin Lutyens's grandiose project to outdo St Peter's in Rome. Bits of Lutyens's cathedral can be seen in the crypt. At the other end of the aptly named Hope Street, the Anglican Liverpool Cathedral (daily 8am-6pm; donation requested) looks much more ancient but was actually completed eleven years later, in 1978, after 74 years in construction. The last of the great Neo-Gothic structures, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott's masterwork claims a smattering of superlatives: Britain's largest and the world's fifth largest cathedral, the world's tallest Gothic arches and the highest and heaviest bells. On a clear day, a trip up the 330ft tower (11am-4pm; Ł2) through the cavernous belfry is rewarded by views to the Welsh hills.

Outskirts

Located near Liverpool's airport, six miles southeast of the centre, Speke Hall (Easter-Oct Tues-Sun 1-5.30pm; Nov to mid-Dec Sat & Sun 1-4.30pm; gardens Easter-Oct same times as house; Nov-Easter Tues-Sun 1-4.30pm; Ł4.50; gardens only Ł2.50; NT; ) is one of the country's finest examples of Elizabethan timbered architecture. Sitting in an oasis of rhododendrons, the house encloses a beautifully proportioned courtyard overlooked by myriad diamond panes. Bus #80/180 to the airport from Paradise Street in the city centre runs within half a mile of the entrance.

For a glimpse of one of the more benign aspects of Merseyside's industrial past, take the Merseyrail under the river to Port Sunlight , a garden village created in 1888 by industrialist William Hesketh Lever for the workers at his soap factory. The project is explained at the Port Sunlight Heritage Centre , 95 Greendale Rd (April-Oct daily 10am-4pm; Nov-March Sat & Sun 10am-4pm; 60p), set amid the open-planned housing estates. Off Greendale Road, a little further from Port Sunlight station, the Lady Lever Art Gallery (Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun noon-5pm; Ł3, free with NMGM Eight Pass) houses a small collection of English eighteenth-century furniture, Pre-Raphaelite paintings by artists such as Rossetti and Ford Madox Brown, Wedgwood china, porcelain and assorted Greek and Roman artefacts.

Pier Head

Though the tumult of shipping which once fought the current here has gone, the Pier Head landing stage remains the embarkation point for the Mersey Ferries to Woodside (for Birkenhead) and Seacombe (Wallasey). Ride one if only for the magnificent views of the Liverpool skyline and the prominent, 322-feet high Royal Liver Building (free tours April-Sept by appointment only; call 0151/236 2748) - it's topped by the "Liver Birds", a couple of cormorants which have become the symbol of the city.

Straightforward ferry shuttles operate every thirty minutes during morning and evening rush hours (Ł1.10 each way); at other times the boats run circular "heritage" cruises (hourly: Mon-Fri 10am-3pm, Sat & Sun 10am-6pm; Ł3.75; tel 0151/330 1444), complete with sappy commentary and repeated renditions of Gerry Marsden's Ferry 'cross the Mersey.

The City Centre: Bold Street To Pier Head

The streets between Bold Street and Duke Street - Slater, Wood and Fleet streets - feature an increasing number of places in which you can sip a latte, neck a late-night beer or shop for punk records and vintage clothing. Concert Square , just off Bold Street, its space once occupied by a factory, was levelled to provide room for warehouse-style bar developments, whose outdoor seats are at a real premium in the summer. On neighbouring Wood Street, the Open Eye Gallery , at nos. 28-32 (Tues-Fri 10.30am-5.30pm, Sat 10.30am-5pm; free; ), features temporary exhibitions of photography and the media arts. Bold Street ends at Hanover Street, with the pedestrianized shopping street, Church Street continuing beyond. To the left, School Lane throws up the beautifully proportioned Bluecoat Chambers , built in 1717 as an Anglican boarding school for orphans and now a contemporary art gallery (Tues-Sat 10.30am-5pm; free) with a decent café and bookstore (Mon-Sat 9.30am-5pm) and arts centre.

From School Lane turn right on Paradise Street and walk down Whitechapel towards Queen Square , through an area which has seen a lot of redevelopment, particularly around Williamson Square . One of the neighbourhood's surviving Victorian warehouses, on the corner of Whitechapel and Queen Square, is occupied by the Conservation Centre (Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun noon-5pm; Ł3, free with NMGM Eight Pass). This is where Merseyside's museums and galleries undertake their restoration work and give visitors a hands-on, behind-the-scenes look.

The above information are taken from Rough Guides
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