I plan to attend an weekend convention in Liverpool in late September.

Mme. Robespierre will be accompanying me, but will not attend all of every day's events. Where is a place we can stay - within a half-hour train ride - where she can find things to do while I'm in the city? She loves the BBC series on National Trust homes, and would probably be happy just visiting one or two a day.

Your answer really has to be central Liverpool.

The heaviest concentration of National Trust properties outside London is in Liverpool itself - though of them, only Speke Hall is close to the stereotype big old house toffs ran out of money to look after properly. The city's also got more free museums than anywhere in Britain outside London and more buildings listed for conservation than anywhere outside London.

While you'e in Liverpool, its Biennale is on: always Britain's largest contemporary art festival, it now rivals Venice in sheer scale and ubiquity, if not quite (!) in quality. There's a ton of other stuff as part of the city's unlikely (but not remotely as odd as people from duller places think) current role as European Capital of Culture (www.liverpool08.com). And that's before we get onto its pubs or its World Heritage status. It's dead easy to spend a week in the city without being involved at all with any of the Beatlemania or football industry

More conventional National Trust-style properties aren't that thick on the ground in NW England outside Liverpool, and you need a car to get to them. So if you're leery of the city, your wife will have the same problem of having to drive in and out if you stay at the only alternatives that come close to meeting your brief: Chester and Southport, which both are a 30-40 mins train ride out.

Southport is not that short of downright grim: an old English seaside resort with stunningly medicre hotels. Chester's nice with a few good hotels - though it's got about a hundredth of what Liverpool's got to see and do. Liverpool's astonishingly easy to drive in: Chester's just as big a pain for drivers as any other English medieval town

To the best of my knowledge, there are no pretty country house style hotels within 30 miles of Liverpool: there absolutely certainly aren't any within easy reach of a railway station. Mrs F and I have unsuccessfully been trying to find one for 30-odd years.

Flanner is probably right about staying in Liverpool itself, as there is plenty to see and do.

Speke Hall is a lovely Tudor black and white hall and according to the National Trust site, there is a bus from Liverpool that goes nearby. Rufford Hall is another Tudor hall that may be accessible by train. It would be difficult to see too many in a day, unless she is willing to drive, which would open up a lot more possibilities.

I have to disagree about Southport - how long is it since you have been Flanner? It has been much improvedvand Lord Street is a good for that other well loved female activity - shopping! Chester has great shops too.

"There's a bus that goes near Speke Hall"

Hard to be sure though. Last time I asked a number 80 driver if his bus was going to Speke he just said "Do I look like a bloody ventriloquist?"

Ba Boom. It's the way I tell 'em

Flanner, I have to dispute your assertion that the Liverpool Biennale is anywhere near the Venice one in scale ! I have spent a week at each of the last 2 Venice Biennales and still didn't see everything - whereas I ran out of things to see in the last Liverpool one in a day and a half. The pubs are good, though.