There is another thread asking folks to name their top 10 English towns/cities…I replied:
"Okay, I’m (happily) surprised at how many times Liverpool pops up…I’ve been to England a few times, 7 or 8 I reckon, but have never gone to “Lidypool” because I've never heard anyone, particularly the English people I’ve known, say much nice about it. Actually, I’ve never heard ANYTHING nice about it. In fact one lady actively advised me against it, saying, “there’s nothing much to and I’m afraid that in the end you’ll find it quite depressing…”this was a bit of a disappointment to me because I had always harbored a desire to go there, if nothing else because of it’s history in the world of pop music.
So, tell me someone what I’m missing…I will post this as a new thread and see what folks have to tell me."

flanner is probably logged off now but he once wrote a great boost for Liverpool - saying how many listed historic buildings it has - maybe more than any other English city (though there seem to be more Irish there than English)

It would help if you like industrial heritage - the restored docks area is great and Beatles - the Beatles Museum or Experience and the Magical Mystery Bus tour i once took went by all the legendary sights - Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields, etc.

But i can see where it would be called grimy and depressing in certain parts - all too typical of English cities 1960s blah concrete structure in main shops area.

Hopefull flanner or some other Liverpuddlian - i believe he was one will chime in with more exact info

As a child I spent some time living in Liverpool and so I guess I'm kind of biased towards it.

Liverpuddlian’s (or Scousers) are real characters and it’s worth going there if for nothing else than to see the locals.
It’s more of an industrial town than, say London. But there are some nice gems amid more standard architecture.
The docks on the Mersey are very nice. And I highly recommend the Tate Art Gallery.
Keep in mind that it has been years and years since I was there.

I don’t know how much of a football (soccer) fan you are. But Liverpool has a huge history of being one of the greatest soccer towns in England. If you are able to go see a match it would be a real experience.

One 'd' in Liverpudlian, please. As for "Lidypool", I can't recommend that at all.

But Liverpool is a lovely town. Flanner thinks it's the finest city in the world, the center of the universe, but I suspect he's seeing an imaginary Liverpool in his head, one that hasn't been filled to the brim with more garbage architecture in recent years than just about anyplace.

But the real Liverpool is still pretty fine. As in some US cities, decades of economic depression can actually help save a lot of the city's fabric from unaesthetic replacements. There are over 2,500 listed buildings, including some fine monumental Georgian and Victorian buildings of the type that bore me to tears (St. George's Hall, etc.) but there are also larger concentrations of fine Georgian houses than anywhere in Britain, particularly in the Canning district.

But the most impressive and important feature of the city is the key to its central position in trade: the dock system. It's the first dock system in the world, and the largest, even if most of the action is now in the container port just to the north. But Liverpool's importance as a port relates to the Industrial Revolution, the colonial slave trade, the emigration of untold millions of English and Irish to America, the birth of the world economy, and the main supply line from the factories of America to the battlefields of WWII. None of this would have been possible without the Liverpool docks.

The first true industrial canal and the world's first true railway terminated here.

Pop music is important, though it would have been nice if they had realized that before they destroyed most of the evidence. I personally have little patience for things like The Beatles Experience, but just strolling down Whitechapel and Mathews Street and imagining the time right before that frenzy started is wonderful, as is the National Trust tour of John and Paul's boyhood homes (not the cheeseball bus tour that merely drives past them).

There's more to Liverpool pop besides the Beatles of course; there's still a "Ferry Cross the Mersey", and Cilla Black, and The Searchers, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, and a hundred more, and in later years there's Echo and the Bunnymen, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Ian Broudie and the Lightning Seeds, and more recently the extremely dubious Atomic Kitten.

Liverpool also features two Premier League soccer teams (Liverpool FC and Everton), and is widely acknowledged to have the best pubs in Britain, hundreds upon hundreds of them.

Ohhh, there's plenty to see in Liverpool. My screen name doesn't tell you, but I'm an American. I think of Liverpool as my honorary hometown, however, having read about it since I was nine years old and the Beatles came to America.

Yes, the Mendips/Forthlin tour is a must, as is riding the ferry 'cross the Mersey. I like wandering around Albert Dock. If you'd like to see the docks a little closer, take the Duck tour. There's also a city bus tour, as well as the Beatles coach tour. The Beatles Story can seem a little canned to some fans, but I like it.

To learn more about Liverpool history, visit Western Approaches, the secret HQ of the Battle of the Atlantic during WWII. We Americans don't know how fortunate we were not to experience the war in our own backyards. (Although Sept. 11th gave us a taste of that.) The Museum of Liverpool Life describes the industrial history of the area.

The Anglican Cathedral is an awesome place of quiet and serenity. If you'd like a day trip out from Liverpool, try Chester, an old Roman city, or Port Sunlight, a manufacturing town known for its soap company.

Liverpool is a little gritty, certainly working class. You can hear the difference in the accents when you take the train from London up to Liverpool. The locals are used to tourists now.

Every time I go, I meet someone who saw the Beatles perform back in the early '60's, and I've even met a few people who knew them personally or were related to them. On my last trip, I talked with a local woman who had seen the Beatles at the Cavern. I got to hear this story in John's former home at Mendips!

This land's the place I love, indeed....

ttt

Alllllllll we are saying is give Liverpool a chance.

My friend, Sandy, and I had a wonderful 1st time visit to Liverpool this past October.
We both had been to the UK before but neither of us had been to that part of England.

Here's a link to our trip report, which includes photos and also a brief review of our hotel:
http://tinyurl.com/22aaee

Great information, thanks. I am starting to plan my next vacation, this will help me enormously.

I went their with my girlfriend in 2005. She's a huge Beatles fan so of course we went to the Beatles exhibition and took the Magical Mystery Tour. After that, we spent our freetime walking around the city. The Liverpool Cathedral is gigantic, and was very pretty inside. We also walked through the slave trade exhibition. Other than that, I must agree that there wasn't a whole lot to do that couldn't be done in other cities. Perfectly fine for a two-day trip from Glasgow though.

Oh, and of course we had a pint at the Cavern.

Starspinners, thank you for the lovely photos of the 'Pool. I was there last September. Aren't they a nice bunch over there? I must confess, I've done the ferry many times, but I haven't spent much time on the Wirral. Next time around, I'll make a stopover and stroll through Birkenhead.

Lovely to read the reports about Liverpool- from non-scousers too! It really is a wonderful city, but to merseyheart, might I suggest you don't get off the train at Birkenhead but stay on to Chester, only 20 minutes or so. Another beautiful city, surrounded by a Roman Wall and they even have their own axcavated amphitheatre, well worth a visit if you're based close by in Liverpool.

Oh, yeah, I'm way ahead of you! I was there on my last trip. Oh, what fun to walk the walls. I enjoyed eating lunch in the cathedral refectory, and having an ice cream down by the river.

But someday, I will step off that ferry, and stroll around the Wirral. I haven't seen much of it.

Too much England, not enough time.