2 x 50 year old couples have 2 days in Liverpool (OR 1 day close to Liverpool + 1 day in Liverpool) Not into Art Galleries.
MUST do a Beatles Tour but not sure which one (?)
What else would you suggest we do? Are there any more 'Must do's'?
(Car available if necessary)

Hope to be in your shoes very soon, and taking the 'Ferry Cross the Mersey' is high on my list.

No idea about Beatles tours, though doubtless others will have some suggestions.Ensure though, that any tour you take includes:
- the (fake, but quite similar to the original, though not as smelly) Cavern, and the depressing Wall of Fame opposite it showing the collapse of Liverpool music-making since this recent embarrassing Beatles hysteria overtook the city at the beginning of the current century
- The Penny Lane bus shelter. There's no longer anything to see at Strawberry Fields (the old children's home has been replaced by a gated housing estate.) But the nearby "Eleanor Rigby" tomb (it really exists, though it's unclear whether McCartney ever saw it) is especially interesting around midday on Sundays: the congregation and clerics at St Peter's (the church whose graveyard it's in the) are astonishingly helpful to visitors: the verger will spontaneously take people over the road to the church hall where Lennon and McCartney are supposed to have met (British etiquette requires a few pounds' contribution to its poor box if you visit a church as a tourist)
- the plaque at 38, Kensington to the location of the Quarrymen's first recording. Unaccountably, the plaque makes no mention of the generations of Flanners whose loyal custom kept this loss-making hobby of the shop's owner in business, and who queued in the rain for buses outside it for a century.
- the basement of the Ann Summers sex shop in Whitechapel, where, when it housed the biggest record shop in Northern England) Brian Epstein is alleged to have first heard of the Beatles (the allegation ignores the fact he'd been an advisor and contributor to the local music paper for the previous year, and that scarcely an edition came out without mentioning them)
- Ringo's house is now boarded up for demolition: Lennon and McCartney's are National Trust sites: immaculately restored to a notional day in 1958, but limited as a source of musical information.

All this trivia aside:
- The ONLY interesting thing about the cross-Mersey ferry is the view of Liverpool's Pier Head (a UNESCO World Heritage site, utterly unassociated with the Beatles nonsense.It's UNESCO listed because the modern world was invented there between 1800 and 1860, and its buildings are almost as outstanding as the rest of the city) The Pier Head's actually better seen from the land on the Liverpool side. Otherwise, it's just a ferry with an endless recording of a third rate singer warbling a crap song (Marsden really never learned to sing)
- Anfield (home of Liverpool's junior football team) capitalises on its heritage in a characteristically mawkish and self-pitying way. Grisly, but fascinating as social commentary (clock the Hillsborough campaign shopfront opposite the Kop.
- Liverpool has Britain's finest range of free museums outside London (http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/)
- The finest example of pre-Reformation English sculpture anywhere (except possibly the altarpiece at Capodimonte museum in Naples) is at Norton Priory, Runcorn
- Can't even begin to understand your silly hostility to art galleries. The Lady Lever Museum at Port Sunlight (and Port Sunlight itself) might cure you of this ridiculous bigotry
- Liverpool's outstanding collection of public buildings should keep even the blindest entertained for several weeks. Try to get hold of a copy of Pevsner's "Buildings of England: Liverpool and South Lancashire". Or., better yet: Quentin Hughes' "Seaport: Architecture and Townscape of Liverpool" (still available on Amazon)

Gee thanks flanneruk. So much information.
What a shame you threw in the insults with it.
>>>>>Can't even begin to understand your silly hostility to art galleries. The Lady Lever Museum at Port Sunlight (and Port Sunlight itself) might cure you of this ridiculous bigotry<<<<<
I am not a bigot, silly, ridiculous, nor ‘hostile to art galleries’(?!) If you knew me, and what I have spent a life-time doing you would realise each one of those adjectives couldn’t be more ‘off the mark’ when describing me.
>>>>>“Can’t even begin to understand”<<<<<
Has your obvious love of Art Galleries impaired your thinking? I’ll explain in more detail: Some people like art galleries and some don’t. My friends and I are of the latter. “Simples”
Perhaps it would be better if you keep your opinions about people you know nothing about off these forums.

PS to flanneruk:

So I take it you're a Tranmere supporter?

Great insider info from the acerbic flanneruk - good tip on the legend of where Epstein first heard of the Beatles, as his autobiography's version never held up to much scrutiny ("A Cellarful of Noise", or as Lennon referred to it, "A Cellarful of Boys" in a dig at Epstein's very closeted homosexuality).

I did the walk-through Beatles Experience at Albert Dock about five years ago, and while somewhat cheesy, I found it an interesting overview of their Liverpool beginnings. Worth a few hours there before visiting the Cavern and the suburbs of Woolton, Allerton, etc. where they grew up. I missed the latter on my last trip, as I only had a few hours in the city, but I'm heading back with the family in September for a short weekend, so the tip about the churchyard is helpful. Didn't know that the children's home at Strawberry Field was torn down, thanks for that.

For the real obsessives, there are some guidebooks of The Beatles' Liverpool for self-guided tours; one is sold at the Beatles Coffee Shop at the St. John's Wood tube station in London, and may be available online.

As far as other sights, there is the massive Liver Building, and what about the Liverpool Institute, isn't that where McCartney and Harrison went to school and is now the Institute for Performing Arts? I thought that was a listed building. Then there is the cathedral, but I read that it is modern and architectually sort of a hulking beast.

I too may skip the art galleries, as we are spoiled for choice in London in that regard. And who knew that there was any such thing as "pre-Reformation English sculpture" to begin with? I thought Henry Moore was the only English sculptor of note, but then again I'm no art critic!

There isn't much of note in Liverpool, apart from the M62, as it's the quickest way to leave.

They have an unhealthy fixation with a 50 year old pop group and hang all the tourism on it. Don't take a car there, you will have to count the windows and tyres when you return to it.

Incoming.

I actually found the Mersey River Cruise very interesting and would recommend it as it gives you a very brief overview of the importance of Liverpool and its port. Despite what Flanner says "Ferry Cross The Mersey" is only featured very briefly as you come back to dock at Pierhead.

St George's Hall is well worth a visit if it is open. Liverpool is chock full of wonderful buildings, not least two cathedrals, which are as contrasting as you can get.

The newly opened Museum of Liverpool does have a section devoted to music so that may be of interest to you.

If the weather is nice a short hop to Crosby and a walk on the beach amongst "Another Place" by Antony Gormley is always good fun.

If any of your party is likes shopping, Liverpool One is worth a stroll and also houses an excellent Spanish restaurant and deli, Lunya which I really enjoyed on my last vist.

If you like the theatre, Liverpool is blessed with some excellent options including the Playhouse, the Everyman and Empire etc. Loads of live music venues ranging from the Arena to pub back rooms.

The Magical Mystery Tour (www.beatlestour.org) is great fun if you're a Beatles fan, so think that will suit you best. Otherwise there is a Beatles Taxi Tour of Liverpool, operated from, oddly enough, a black cab. www.beatlesfabfourtaxitour.com if you prefer a little more intimate tour than a coach/bus.

And there's nothing like being at Anfield with the Kopites!