LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND
We left the peaceful Village of Worsley and took the train to Liverpool mainly to visit the town and live, breathe and walk the streets where "The Beatles" grew up and wrote most of their songs.
We arrived at Lime Street Station. Opened in August 1836, it is the oldest still-operating grand terminus mainline rail station in the world and It was the first passenger train station in the country. Train stations before then were only for the transport of cargo.
Stepping out of Liverpool Lime Station we are greeted with the spectacular example of Neoclassical Architecture, St. Georges Hall. Built in 1854 as law courts and a venue for music festivals. Interesting combination of uses, but if you have to fill out legal tedious paperwork, it must be nice to have such a beautiful place to do it, and you might hear some great music.
Walking down Lime Street to Brown Square to catch a bus, we see the Museum Quarter and most prominent is Wellington's Column which is a towering memorial to the Duke of Wellington that was commissioned after the Duke's death in 1852. It was the last column monuments to be erected in the United Kingdom. The statue of Wellington is cast in bronze taken from the cannons used at the battle of Waterloo and facing to the Southeast, towards the Belgian fields where Wellington claimed his most famous victory.
We catch a bus to take us to the Harbor and on the route our attention is drawn the sound of ringing of bells. The ringing bells were from one of the most unusual Cathedrals we have seen. Looking down the street we see Christ the King Metropolitan Cathedral, locally nicknamed "Paddy's Wigwam", the seat of the Archbishop of Liverpool and the mother church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Liverpool. It has four bells named John, Paul, Luke, and Mathew but typical of Liverpoolians they are nicknamed John, Paul, George and Ringo.
We arrived at the harbor where we had lunch before we caught the Beatles city tour. SInce we only had a prtial day to explore Liverpool we had decided to take the Hop on Hop Off Beatles tour bus. This enabled us to make the best use of our short stay to go all through Liverpool to see the main places famous for the Beatles since they were spread out over the city.
Penny Lane was on the route the bus took for Paul and John to school each day. The song was about many of the characters that they saw hanging out at the terminus of Penny Lane waiting to catch their bus. When they were going to school they would challenge each other to write a song about something they saw along the route and that was the inspiration for the the song.Paul McCartney and George Harrison first met on a bus while the two were schoolboys. They rode the bus together going to and from the Liverpool Institute High School for Boys and found they shared an interest in music and playing guitars.
"Penny Lane there is a barber showing photographs
Of every head he's had the pleasure to know.
And all the people that come and go
Stop and say 'Hello'."
"On the corner is a banker with a motorcar,
And little children laugh at him behind his back.
And the banker never wears a mac
In the pouring rain, very strange."
"In Penny Lane there is a fireman with an hourglass,
And in his pocket is a portrait of the Queen.
He likes to keep his fire engine clean,
It's a clean machine."
"Behind the shelter in the middle of the roundabout
The pretty nurse is selling poppies from a tray."
Below are photos of the sites that are described in the song Penny Lane
"Penny Lane" was "in our ears and in our eyes" as we traveled down the road "there beneath the blue suburban skies."
We also stopped by Strawberry Field where John Lennon had grown up nearby and played in the grounds of the home as a child. In time
As i mentioned before, the tour was accompanied by music and our tour guide is a musician and we sang Beatle songs on our journey.
We also saw John Lennon's and Paul McCartney's childhood homes. In these two buildings over 60 Beatle songs were composed. John and Paul would sit in each others bedrooms and write songs together.
After the tour, we went down to see the Cavern Club where the Beatles played in the early days of their career.
We finished off our visit with a drink in The Grapes Pub where the Beatles would often go to drink after playing a gig at the Cavern. Our table in the pub was across the aisle from the booth where they would usually sit.
