A Hard Day’s Night in Liverpool.
Having just spent a couple of days in this fab city, thanks
to a recent competition win, I now know what The Beatles meant, when they sang
about a hard day’s night!
My entry was picked out from over 1,200 entries, and I won
an overnight stay at The Beatles themed hotel, with free tickets to Tate
Liverpool’s latest exhibition.
My wife, Katy, and I hit the ground running, literally
scampering across the road from busy Lime Street Station to St George’s hall
opposite. We were keen to see the 30,000 Minton tiles which cover the floor,
and are protected for most of the time and only unveiled every ten years or so.
We were lucky that they had just been uncovered, at a cost of £18,000, just
five days earlier! This was an amazing sight, which would easily match anything
you could see anywhere in Europe. Jaw dropping, and then some! The tiles, every
one hand crafted, feature incredible patterns, boys on dolphins, sea nymphs,
Liver birds, and much more. A truly spectacular start to the holiday.
After getting our breath back in the café, we walked round
the corner to The World Museum. This is one of my favourite museums anywhere in
the country, and I was looking forward to seeing the “Age of the Dinosaur”
exhibition. This incredible show features six animatronic dinosaurs, which are
very lifelike, and a little scary! Fab fun though, and well worth the visit.
A short walk took us to our hotel, The Hard Day’s Night
hotel, the only Beatles themed hotel in the world! We were escorted to our
room, and shown how all the high tech gismos worked. The room was terrific,
although having a larger than life size picture of Ringo staring down at us was
rather disconcerting! I put on the TV, only to hear that famous suspended G7
chord twang out, the most famous chord in rock and roll history, followed by
John Lennon singing “It’s been a hard day’s night, and I’ve been working like a
dog”. Terrific. I listened to the song three times before I put it off.
Interestingly if you look at the chord notation for this infamous chord, it
looks like the Beatles on stage! Check it out on www.harddaysnighthotel.com if you
don’t believe me!
Refreshed, we made our way to the Albert Docks and Tate
Liverpool. Our prize included free tickets for the “Alice in Wonderland”
exhibition. It was incredible to see Lewis Carroll’s original manuscript for
this classic book, and all the prehistory was fascinating. The early pictures
were astonishing, and we both thoroughly enjoyed the first half of the
exhibition. The second half which was much more surreal, and not to our taste,
but overall, we felt enriched by our visit. Running late we scooted round the
rest of the Tate, as it was almost closing time.
We headed to Liverpool One, the largest city centre
regeneration in Europe, which Katy was delighted to discover was open till 8pm.
I was dropped off in the husband crèche, while Mrs Dove went shopping.
Ready for some food we made our way upstairs to a fabulous
Thai restaurant, Yee Rah. We treated ourselves to a fine bottle of Chardonnay
and some excellent food. A couple of local students at the next table ordered a
mixed grill to share, and I’ve never seen anything like it. It was served
vertically, and must have been eighteen inches high. The students were equally
amazed, and took loads of photographs to show to their friends. I commented
that it looked better than some of the installations at the Tate!
Slightly tipsy after the wine, we headed to Matthew Street
for the highlight of day one, The Cavern Club. We were lucky to get seats right
at the front, and stayed for nearly three hours. We knew every song that that
the Lennon lookalike sang, and we sang our hearts out along with him throughout
the night. There was a great atmosphere in the club, was full of Americans. One
guy, from Chicago, requested a song, and ended up singing on stage. When the
artiste asked for the gentleman’s name, he answered “Dick”. “Can I call you
Richard?” our man enquired. “Well you can if you like, but I prefer Dick!” Katy
and I found this hilarious, but maybe you had to be there to appreciate it. The
highlight of my wife’s night was when the singer sang “When I’m 64” just for
me. (My age this year).
Luckily our hotel was nearby, as we were tired out, and were
in danger of losing our voices.
The following morning, we both felt worse for wear, and
tucked into a proper English breakfast, with lots of cups of tea. We had a busy
day planned, but decided to just concentrate on the one outing, which was
somewhere we have always wanted to visit, Port Sunlight. This pretty village is
situated on the other side of The River Mersey, so we took advantage of the
speedy Merseyrail to get there.
The weather was fantastic for January, and we were able to
explore the whole village with the aid of a tourist map, purchased from the
local museum, which was fascinating. The highlight of the day was looking round
the Lady Lever art gallery, one of the best galleries I’ve ever been in, and
I’ve been in plenty. Many of my favourite artists have their work on display
here, including Waterhouse, Millais and Holman Hunt. My favourite paintings
were “Bubbles”, with its links to the soap industry and Lord Lever, and “The
Scapegoat”, which is such a haunting image.
Having enjoyed afternoon tea at the gallery, we made our way
back to the city centre exhausted, and with aching feet. We had planned all
sorts for the afternoon, but ended up back at the hotel resting in the lobby.
And then it was time to go home. A hard day’s night was had
by both of us, and we loved every single minute!
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