Liverpool , Merseyside (so called because it is on the Mersey River) in Lancashire is 211 miles northwest of London and 34 miles west of Manchester.  Because it was an extremely important port in WWII it was heavily bombed by the Germans in 80 airraids.  Vast areas of the city were completely devastated although some major landmark buildings and monuments were spared, for example the so-called "Three Graces", the Royal Liver Building (named after the Liver Bird from which derives the city's name), the Cunard Building, headquarters of the Cunard ship line, and the Port of Liverpool Building.  The city has been rebuilt and, with a large waterfront commercial complex called the Albert Dock, is now a very pleasant city to visit.  The waterfront is aWorld Heritage Site.

 

We spent two days visiting Liverpool.  We stayed in our motorhome on a farm across the river in Birkenhead on the Wirral Peninsula. We could see the hills of Wales off in the distance from there. One of the farm's inhabitants was a magnificent Welsh Cobb, a horse that could do everything--ride, pull, jump, and hunt.  A bus stopped just outside the driveway and took us through a tunnel under the Mersey into downtown Liverpool in about 20 minutes.  We forgot to ask the name of the farm's  bus stop to tell to the bus driver on the way back.  When I told the driver of this, and told him that we were staying on a farm, he knew exactly which farm we were at and he was able to tell us when the bus arrived at our stop.

 

In addition to walking around the city, we wanted to visit two specific museums--the World Museum  and the Merseyside Maritime Museum on the Albert Dock.  Our visits to the two places are briefly described in the letter we wrote home. The highlight of the World Museum for us was a famous portrait of Henry VIII  (see photo).   In short, we enjoyed both of them and got pretty tired walking through the countless galleries.  Our desire to walk the streets was satisfied by the trek from the World Museum to the Albert Dock, quite a long way away.  On the route and near the waterfront, we came across the Queen Victoria Monument, a pretty large marble structure with pillars and a jet-black Victoria standing very regally, indeed high above us.  Later, in the Maritime Museum we were looking at some photos of the devastation after a bombing raid in WWII and clearly saw the same monument standing untouched amid a huge area of devastation.  We include on the photo page a photo of that photo along with a photo of the monument.

 

Liverpool is, of course, where the Beatles come from.  The nightclub in which they got their start, The Cavern,  is still there, a mecca for all Beatles fans. Unfortunately, we could not muster enough ambition to make that particular pilgrimage.

 

In our letter from Liverpool there is a description of an encounter with two Liverpudlians (a term that refers to residents of Liverpool, a.k.a. scousers), an elderly couple (right! our age) in a cafe who insisted on visiting us on the farm, and who came bearing gifts.  Very strange, and very nice.  Both had lived in Liverpool during the air raids and told us a little about their experiences.