2013 Euro Vacation: UK

Beatles and Gormley

This was our first ever visit to Liverpool, and the visitor is left in no doubt as to who are the most famous sons of this city – images, statues and exhibits of the Beatles are everywhere in the main city tourist areas. The city is much nicer than we expected it to be, and the old docks have been tarted up and made into a tourist attraction. We took one of the Beatles tours, and the taxi driver from Fab Four Taxi Tours was a real enthusiast – he is an amateur muso himself, and is quite passionate about the Beatles.

We saw all sorts of great trivia – Ringo’s house, his school, pub where his Mum used to work (a very dodgy looking place) which was on the cover of his first solo album; George, John and Paul’s houses; the bus stop where John’s Mum was run over by a car; a wall where all of Brian Epstein’s clients were photographed for a publicity shot (Beatles, Gerry and the Pacemakers, and Brian Poole and the Tremeloes); Penny Lane (including the bus shelter, barber, bank and fire station); the original Strawberry Fields; the Church yard and social club hall where John and Paul first met, and where the Quarrymen played their first gig, and where Eleanor Rigby is buried in the churchyard near Father Mackenzie, and where Lennon lost his virginity, and ending at the Cavern Club in Mathew St. What a tour!

We also visited the Gormley statues at Crosby beach out at the mouth of the Mersey estuary. There are 100 cast-iron, life-size figures spread out along three kilometres of the foreshore, stretching almost one kilometre out to sea, all are made from casts of the artist's own body.

Like the similar ones at Lake Ballard in WA, they were supposed to be temporary but no-one wants to see them go, so they are now a Liverpool feature.

Great city and well worth a visit.