"Where's That Accent From? Same Place as Me... Liverpool!!!"

LIVERPOOL!!!

After our week in Bath we traveled up to Liverpool for our third week in England!  We didn't quite know what to expect but I really wanted to visit this city because I absolutely love The Beatles and couldn't resist the opportunity to see where it all began!  So we were pleasantly surprised to find that Liverpool is a really awesome city.  Even if you're not a Beatles fan  (there probably are at least a couple people who don't like them on the planet), it's a fun city with lots to offer.  Our cute little hotel was right on the water (a little inlet/harbor) and the view from our window was fantastic!

One example of how Liverpool is awesome is that we happened to be there during the annual Pirate Festival!!!  Haha it was pretty fun, with actual pirate ship canon fights, shops and restaurants decked out in skull and cross bone gear and little kids everywhere dressed up in their finest Pirate attire.  Super cute.  I really don't know how we manage to hit these random events everywhere we go but we sure do have fun at them!!!

The Pirate festival was mainly held on Albert Dock, which also has tons of cute shops, yummy restaurants and not to mention the fabulous Beatles Story museum (along with the Mordern Art museum and more).  The Dock has been around for a long time, they even helped build the Titanic here, though the whole area was recently renovated when Liverpool was the Europe City of Culture in 2008.  It's definitely a cool place to explore!

Albert Dock looking at the Art Museum and a Government Building Downtown

Right on Albert Dock there is a Maritime museum that we went into while we were waiting for the Pirate battle to begin, and it had some cool things about the British Navy as well as a special exhibit on the Titanic.

We also went through the Tate Modern art museum in Liverpool and they have some beautiful and awesome stuff in there.  We really enjoyed exploring the rooms and seeing new surprises around every corner!

Andy Warhol's take on her Majesty

prism piece by Yoko Ono.

There were also about 5 other museums we went to while in Liverpool and here are some highlights from other various Liverpool museums.

one of the Liverpool Lambananas :)

more modern art

I love Mark Rothko Paintings!

Bansky sculpture

Fish at the aquarium and yet another R.O.U.S.

Something that has become a famous landmark of Liverpool is the Superlambana!  Japanese artist Taro Chiezo made the first Superlambanana, which is giant sized and all yellow, and since then several smaller versions have been decorated in many different ways and put on display throughout the city.  It's fun to come across them on a street corner or in a museum!  Here are some of the ones we found :)

We also came across this huge gate in the Chinatown part of Liverpool which we thought was pretty cool, even if the Bansky art we were originally trying to see was covered up by construction scaffolding!  Never to be discouraged, we enjoyed exploring the city to see what funky little shops, pubs and sights it had to offer.

While looking up popular things to do in Liverpool I came across this art installation at a beach that was a short train ride away from Liverpool, so we decided to go check it out!  It's a sculpture installation called Another Place by artist Anthony Gormley at Crosby Beach just north of Liverpool.  It's definitely different from anything else I've ever seen and it had a sort of Eerie charm about it.  The life size sculptures were cast from the artists own body and are spread out over several miles of beach, going out into the water, with some of the statues being almost completly covered with water at high tide while others remain on dry sand on the shore.  Here's a look:

Can you tell which one is Erin and which are statues in that last photo?
It was a fun detour from our Liverpool adventures!

Now don't worry, we did LOTS of Beatles stuff too, but I figured I'd let them have their own special post so that one is coming soon :)