After the week in Amsterdam I made a detour to England before heading back to Nashville. My first stop was Liverpool. I took a direct flight via EasyJet and it was less than 1.5 hours. I gained an hour on the way there so arrived around 8:30. I love how small Europe is!
My hotel for the Liverpool portion of my trip was the Marriott City Center. It’s in a good location and the service was exceptional. The decor was a less modern than I prefer, but overall it was a good stay. Liverpool’s city centre has a sizable pedestrian zone that is really easy to navigate. After checking in I made my way down to the docks to meet-up with a Couch Surfer who stayed with me last year. He works at a bar/club that is in the Albert Dock portion of town. It’s a tourist destination, but definitely worth checking out. They even have a Yellow Submarine in the dock (Liverpool is famous for the Beatles, in case you didn’t know). A group of my friend’s coworkers joined us once he got off and we headed to a bar around the corner. After last call there we headed to Motel. It was was of the best bars I’ve ever been to and I have to confess that I drank more than usual, but that’s apparently one of the major pastimes in Liverpool. The thing that thrilled me the most about Motel (besides the atmosphere and beer) was the art/decor which included a Mystery Train quote about Memphis. After shutting down Motel we went to another happening bar but I was getting worn out and had grab a cab back to the hotel.
Saturday morning I met a friend from some small city I can’t ever remember the name of. He took a train in and we set off to explore the city. Liverpool One is a large shopping mall/area that also has some nice restaurants. We stopped into Yee Rah for some upscale fish and chips (which were pretty tasty) and I got to visit my very first Zara Home (unfortunately it was a bit of a letdown). After lunch we went to The Cavern Club which is built to mirror the original Cavern Club where the Beatles played. It’s also a major tourist destination, but the uniqueness of it makes it worth it. If it was not so crowded I would have wanted to hang our longer. Being a Saturday afternoon only the front portion was open and they of course had a guy covering the Beatles on stage. After the Cavern Club I stopped by TopShop and found an absolutely fantastic trenchcoat that is short in length and something my 5’7 self can actually wear without looking ridiculous. The exchange rate killed me, but it was worth it! Later in the afternoon we wandered down toward Albert Dock and checked out the Museum of Liverpool. I found it to be super fascinating and I highly recommend checking it out. There is a Big Wheel close to Albert Dock (think a shrunken down London Eye) and being a giant sucker for ferris wheels headed that way. My friend is afraid of them so I went around solo and had a marvelous time! It’s a bit pricey, but the views are fantastic.
All are wandering about was exhausting so we rested up a bit before dinner. Next door to the hotel was a tapas bar called La Tasca which was absolutely fantastic. They had a ton of vegetarian options and all were delicious. I was insanely stuffed and found the prices to be fairly reasonable (note: England is quite expensive so “fairly reasonable” is still expensive by US standards)
Sunday morning I took a train to Manchester and it was quite an exciting event! I missed my first one due to oversleeping and wanting to have a leisurely breakfast. The second one I made with maybe 10 minutes to spare! Lugging my super large suitcase was a bit obnoxious, but the train was sparsely populated so it wasn’t too bad.