24 Hours in Liverpool: A Quick Tour of Beatlemania, Museums, and Other Sights

August 15, 2018

Almost one year ago, as we traveled across China by train, we were arriving in Xi’an to see the famed Terracotta Army and its thousands of impressive underground Warriors. If you followed along that journey, or just read that post, you know that seeing the Terracotta Warriors in Xi’an, although clearly amazing, was quite the harrowing experience. See, China has a lot of people. And most of those people were also trying to look into the excavated pits to see some of the Warriors when we were. To be fair that was our fault for going in August. We didn’t get the best view, and it was probably the most stressed out I’ve ever been. Haha that’s not true I’m stressed out all the time but still, wow. So when we heard that the Terracotta warriors (not all; there are thousands) were going on tour, and one of those tour stops would be Liverpool, we thought 1) jfc we went all the way to Xi’an to see them and they are coming a mere two hours from home?? 1b) it’s okay Xi’an was amazing and it was worth going, and 2) we should go to Liverpool and see our old friends again! So we did. And we liked it, and we loved it.

We made a weekend out of the visit, and we really enjoyed ourselves more than we expected. Liverpool (pronounced LIV POOOO) is way on the opposite side of the country; here in London we’re in the southeast bit and Liverpool is all the way up on the northwest coast. It looks like it should be a pretty substantial journey to get there, but it’s a 2 1/2 hour train. Lol England is baby sized.

We had our Terracotta Take 2 Tickets booked for Saturday afternoon, so we had time to stroll around and get a feel for the city first. I was a little biased towards liking it even before we explored, though, because I recently learned that the Liverpool football club’s team song is “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, as in the big song from “Carousel”. See, sports fans can be musical theatre fans too! I love that so much and I wonder if LFC fans are extra keen to see “Carousel” when it plays (side note you have until September 16 to catch the current Broadway revival!). We arrived the day of Liverpool’s Pride parade, so the city center was extra crowded (like Xi’an!) and extra colorful for us. We found ourselves on the famous Mathew street (one t for real), where we instantly became two of many tourists taking pictures of Beatles statues outside the famous Cavern Club, where the Beatles first became popular, playing super long sets during almost 300 appearances there. Of course, they were known as the Quarrymen at that time, and the position of Ringo was being filled by Pete Best. (I’ll tell you how I learned things infra.)

would legit die laughing if fancy singing was liverpool for opera

The Cavern Club is where Brian Epstein, who would become the Beatles manager, first saw the group perform. During their performances in the early years, the boys would wear jeans and leather jackets, and they would smoke and drink the whole time. Omg and the stage was in the basement and there was no ventilation. Seeing the early Beatles is probably every person’s dream but it sounds like my nightmare. The fans were already rabid in these early years, so even though I find young fanatics of any era supes annoying, it annoys me extra when older people complain about young fans today, because like, that was you with the Beatles, dog. Anyway, Epstein is the one that made them start wearing suits, which elevated their whole vibe and coincidentally brought in a higher fee. Beatlemania soon broke out nationwide, and then they took over the entire world.

Epstein also signed Cilla Black, who was the hat check girl at the Cavern. Do Brits really say hat-check instead of coat-check? Because everyone is wearing funny hats? LOVES IT

I could tell you more about the Beatles right now, since 24 hours in Liverpool makes one quite the expert, but we’re going to take a short break to see the big f-ing thing we came for, the Terracotta Warriors.

The exhibition, on until October, is located in the city center at the World Museum, and tickets are going fast so book online way ahead of time.

As you probably remember from the OG Terracotta Warriors post, this huge statuary army is some A-level grave robbing. Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor of China, ordered all of these figures – warriors, chariots, horses – to be built and buried with him in a huge secret underground city of a grave in order to protect him in the afterlife. Wasn’t HE surprised! Work on the army began when the wee emperor was only 13 years old, in 246 BCE, so they’re hella old, and there’s hella lots of them – approximately 8,000 soldiers were buried with the emperor. Eventually, 700,000 workers were involved with this project in some capacity.

This touring exhibit only has about 8 or so of the soldiers on display, so, a good deal less than you’d see in the gigantic excavated pits of Xi’an. But the exhibit has a good deal more information explaining the significance of the army and the historical relevance of the time period, so we actually learned more than we did in China – probably because all the signs were in Chinese and/or unable to be reached. This museum did a nice job putting together a complete exhibit even though nothing can rival seeing the thousands of statues in the pits.

my favorite sign outside of China

Although, the museum did try to rival the pits. Above is THE BEST INFORMATION SIGN EVER. Let’s break it down paragraph by paragraph, because each one has absolute GOLD, JERRY! First, we freaking died laughing (I’m sorry it was and still is very inappropriate NEVER LAUGH AT DEATH) that the emperor thought ‘hmm maybe I’ll drink this terrifying shape-shifting metal that when mixed with aluminum COMPLETELY FUCKS YOUR SHIT UP [have you seen that video?] to try to attain immortality OH NO WAIT I DIED FROM IT.’ It’s pretty funny.

It’s smart of him to think of plants and herbs to do the trick too, since mercury probably wasn’t so fun to eat, and I absolutely adore the idea of him sending out a crack team of his ‘trusted magician’ plus THOUSANDS OF CHILDREN to find some magic plants on secret beautiful islands. Um, WHY the children? What on earth was his thought process? Besides the obvious “oh i’m so forked up on mercury rn.” Was he like, oh the spirits of the hidden islands probably won’t show their magical lands to anyone but innocent children, so let’s round up thousands and send them into the sea. I GUARANTEE that that magician, if he was worth his salt, took the kids and found an island refuge and was like ‘we are NEVER going back to that lunatic, he will kill us all at some point.’ “Sadly they never return” = “thank god Xu Fu decided to save those kids.”

And lastly, hoo boy, HOW MANY MAGICIANS DID THIS GUY HAVE? I guess if he had 3,000 spare kids to send off on an island-finding adventure, he had more than his fair share of magicians to send hither and thither looking for, ostensibly, weed, but I just love that all these signs kept referring to more and more of his endless supply of magicians. I mean, someone holler at this boy that if sooo many people are claiming to be magicians, it’s just math that some of them are lying. But my favorite part is that he and the fam sought immortality so hard that they tried to ensure it even after they died. ‘Oh let’s put these symbols of immortal beings in our tombs for when we die so maybe they will grant us immortality.’ Guys, did noooo one hear themselves?

One of my favorite parts of the exhibit was a gorgeous suit made entirely of jade tiles. It was for one of the emperor’s family members, to be buried in…inside his tomb…after his death…in order to ensure immortality. Oh it’s TOO GOOD. But at least all their superstitions about the afterlife paid off for us! It was cool to see our old warrior friends again and remember all the good times we had in Xi’an.

Next, more Beatles.

Everywhere you go in Liverpool, you’ll either see a pub with a Beatly name (e.g. The Sergeant Pepper), or hear Beatles music playing from somewhere, or see Beatles gift shops, or statues, or all of them at once, usually. But the official, actually great Beatles museum is called The Beatles Story, and it’s near the river (which is called the Mersey, which is what you will be asking for after you hear ‘Help!’ 5 times in a row in certain pubs). Entry to the Beatles Story is $17 (that’s pounddollars), which seems like a lot if you’re someone like me who is like ‘eh yeah I guess the Beatles were good’, but it’s actually well worth it. This is one of the most entertaining, informative museums. I think the key to enjoying yourself is timing – we arrived at about 6:30pm on a Saturday night, pre-dinner. It closes at 8pm, but we were assured we’d have time to finish the whole thing. When we arrived, the staff was honestly so happy for us. They all kind of exclaimed, “Wow you are brilliant for coming here now!” Apparently, at all other hours, especially on weekends, the place is packed to the gills with people. And since we returned the next morning to visit the gift shop, we saw how true this was. Just the line for tickets alone snaked around and around the entry hall, packed with school groups and visitors from all over Europe. In contrast, on this Saturday evening, we were the only people in that entryway. Amazing tip I just gave you. It was a little tight to finish in time (they let us stay till about 8:15pm), but overall it was great.

The museum takes you through the entirety of their lives – starting with their childhoods, families, and when they first started playing instruments, going through their early Quarrymen years, the Epstein partnership, the albums, the movies, the world takeover, and the deaths/later years. All of it. There’s an audioguide that is included with the ticket price, and it’s very good. Sometimes it doesn’t quite match up with the order of the rooms, but the information is really interesting and helpful.

The coolest part is that the basement is a recreated version of the Cavern Club – so you’d go down the rickety steps into the completely unventilated basement room and see the bar, the stage, and the chairs lined up for the audience. It was very cool, and there was tons of information everywhere about how Epstein took over management, how he and the rest of the band asked Pete Best to leave and Ringo Starr to join, how their early devout fans rioted about the change, &c.

hot tip: when you take your picture in front of this stage, as you will inevitably do, the lighting is such that you will look like a deformed wax figure

When you leave the stage and enter the next room, be warned that the ventilation status (i.e. there is none) gets a whole lot worse and kind of smelly. It was like being behind a restaurant with all that weird hot exhaust blowing out. So hurry on through and get to the more fun times, like the magical mystery tour bus!

not a real bus

Real submarine though!

Move along the halls and get all your timeframes mixed up (this is where the signage and audio started to get confused a bit, prob from all the LSD) and soon you’ll run into the yellow submarine! Guests can enter the sub and take pictures inside, which we did obviously. It was good silly fun to break up all the sad stories before and after, like about Epstein, and Lennon, and George, and America I guess.

We learned a good deal about each of the men (and Yoko too), especially Paul and John since they were the starriest of them. John’s activism was pretty weird. There were lots of pictures of him and Yoko sitting in bed with paper bags over their heads. Not really sure what they were going for but it was anti-war, which is good. My favorite bit of information is that Paul now owns a publishing company, MPL Communications, and they own the rights to Grease, A Chorus Line, and Guys & Dolls. I think it is hilarious that little community theatres putting on these shows are paying Paul McCartney.

John’s white piano

I definitely recommend paying a visit to the Beatles Story Museum, which taught me 99% of everything I know about the Beatles (I didn’t know much before). They have a great gift shop too, with lots of fun shirts and pieces of crap that no one needs but everyone really wants. The shop is open to the (non-ticketed) public.

As a final stop on our Beatles Tour of Liverpool, we drove down Penny Lane. Yes it’s an actual road they wrote the song about. It’s nowhere close to the city center, however. We saw a few black cabs bringing tourists over here to take their pictures, which is probably the easiest option for visitors. There were also giant tour buses but they can’t actually make the turn onto the narrow road. We had the good fortune of being driven down the lane by our friend’s parents. (Thanks again!)

If you came here for the Beatles tourism information, that’s where we end, unforch. But we have a few more famous Liverpool sights to look at. First up, the Bombed Out Church. I KNOW. That’s literally its name.

it’s weird to call it that guys

The Bombed Out Church, named by stoned people?, was once called St. Luke’s Church but then it got bombed in World War II, in 1941 during the Liverpool Blitz, and it has been a ruin and a memorial to those lost in the war ever since. It looks down Bold Street, which is Liverpool center’s most famous/happening/hip af street, so I guess it needed a really cool name. Cool name, guys.

While it was a still functioning church, it was also intended to be used as a venue for ceremonial worship and as a concert venue. I bet whoever set those original usage restrictions had no idea what would happen in 2018:

I find these posters kind of hilarious, the Gin Party one in a ‘wow even churches in England are alcoholics’ kind of way and the comedy one in ‘hooooly, TOO SOON!’ kind of way. I mean come on, “explosive” comedy? at the Bombed Out church? TOO SOON. So funny.

The last sight we had to see (and had time to see) (time to see what we had time to see! turn the projector on!) was the Three Graces. These are three landmark buildings along the Mersey waterfront, and I have no idea why they are called the Graces and not just like Nice Historic Buildings but maybe someone out there does. The three buildings are: the Royal Liver Building, which opened in 1911 to be the home of the Royal Liver Assurance group and was one of the first buildings in the world to be built using reinforced concrete; the Cunard Building, built between 1914-1917 as the headquarters of the Cunard Line, the cruise line that built the Lusitania (the White Star Line, the makers of the Titanic, were across the street at the time); and the Port of Liverpool Building, constructed between 1904-1907 and the headquarters of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board for 87 years. The Three Graces are part of Liverpool’s UNESCO-designated World Heritage Maritime Mercantile City.

Here are pictures of the Three Graces with the Four Beatles in front.

Graces #1&2

Grace #3

It’s a lovely walk along the Mersey waterfront to see the Three Graces and the whole Mercantile City as you make your way over to Royal Albert Dock. The RAD (so rad) is a complex of docks and warehouse-y buildings that now house chain restaurants, Beatles gift shops, and the Beatles Story. They also are, of course, working docks, and we were lucky enough to arrive the day the famous Clipper Race was returning to the docks. The Clipper Race, or the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race, is a year-long sailing race around the world – 40,000 nautical miles – that uses ‘trained’ but amateur crew members. The sailors onboard are regular people like you and me, except crazy like Husbo P because even though they aren’t professional sailors or really getting enough training (because enough training = you’d be professional), they’re like ‘sure I’ll sail around the world on this wee boat for a year WHAT COULD GO WRONG’. A qualified skipper leads each boat crew but like, what if he dies, Jill? The crazy ass civilians can sign on for the whole year or for one of the eight legs of the journey. The race has always begun somewhere in England, and this past one started and ended in Liverpool at Royal Albert Dock. So weird, right? And we were there for their triumphant return. This whole thing sounds like my absolute nightmare.

please don’t make me do this

Anyway, I’m happy to report that Australian Wendy Tuck was the winning skipper this year, the first woman to win. Yay for you, Wendy! And yay for me never having to do this, please.

As you can see, even just 24 hours in Liverpool can be full of lots of fun, lots of arts, lots of culture (‘that’s Petah Tikva!’), and reminders of your nightmares. I would not be opposed to returning to this great city, even though I was there on a Saturday night in the summertime – which means I saw no less than FIFTY suuuuper drunken hen dos (bachelorette parties) with brides-to-be in bright pink sashes in like a 3-block radius. They really pack in the hen dos in this town, jee oh boy. We also saw a few of the stereotypical stag dos (bachelor parties), where they make the groom-to-be dress like a baby and walk around town in a giant diaper. If I can get through that and be happy to return, that must mean it’s a pretty cool city.

It also had some incredible vegan food; I was shocked at the number of signs in restaurant windows I saw advertising their vegan options. You can read about our fancy lunch at the Art School here , and here for a look at the best dinner ever (, one of).