A Lot Like Life

Let me just start this post by saying that I was soooooo excited to go to Liverpool while we were in England. I absolutely love The Beatles and couldn't wait to see where it all began! Liverpool is a very cool city, and even has lots to offer besides the Beatles (as seen in the previous post), but I have to say I had so much fun doing Beatles things while in Liverpool, it was almost like a little theme park!

The first place we went was the Beatles Story Exhibition. It was pretty awesome and told the story of the Beatles from the beginning with tons of pictures, pieces like instruments and costumes, life size sets of the different albums and places from Beatles history and of course great music!

George Harrison's First Guitar

school pictures!

The whole thing was set up chronologically, starting with their early days at school, all the way through to their eventual individual careers.

We went to the Beatles story before we really explored the actual locations in Liverpool, so a lot of it was new to us, and ended up actually being an awesome representation of places like the cavern club!

Of course we had a little fun posing with the pictures :)

The life size sets of the album covers and themes were awesome! There was a huge set of the Sgt. Pepper cover, a Magical Mystery Tour section and even a life size yellow submarine you could walk into!

At the end there was a room that highlighted the solo careers of each of The Beatles after the band broke up. It was a pretty cool set up with huge black and white pictures of their faces and autographs on a rounded wall for each one. Behind each wall there was a themed area displaying things from their career. John Lennon's glasses, videos from Ringo's movies, Pictures of Paul's concerts, and a whole meditation area set up for George with pillows and flowers everywhere.

The wall were also decorated with tons of memorable quotes, including one of my favorites!

Even the Starbucks attached to the building (which you conveniently exit through) was Beatles themed! We stopped for a frosty treat before heading out to explore the rest of Liverpool!

Along with the Beatles Story we also took the.... wait for it...... MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR of Liverpool! That's right folks we were total tourist nerds and got on a tour bus, drove around listening to Beatles music and saw the famous and important Beatles sights around Liverpool.

It was awesome!

Of course we got to see Penny Lane, which is actually a very pretty tree lined street that turns into a cute little neighborhood with homes and shops a little further down :)

This pic may look random but it's actually the "shelter in the middle of the round-about!"

walking down Penny Lane...

Now the tour was a little rushed, so the next day we ended up taking a bus back over to Penny Lane to hang out a little bit more, and ended up stopping for some thoroughly English fish and chips!

This picture is back from the tour again, and is of Ringo's house! (The fifth one on the left was his door) These houses are actually vacant now, and the whole area is in the works to be torn down, but there are petitions in Liverpool to keep 30 or so units, probably including Ringo's former residence, so hopefully it will be preserved!

This next picture was pretty lucky. We were on the bus, literally just waiting at the light on Penny lane, and this firetruck drove by. If you don't know why that was an awesome coincidence, go listen to the song Penny Lane! (And it was a pretty clean machine!)

And here's the Barber who I bet has tons of photographs by now...

We also got to see George's childhood home, which was exciting for me because he's my favorite Beatle!

We also drove by the church where John first met Paul, and saw this graveyard which "supposedly" has an actual grave marked Eleanor Rigby....

And we also got the see the gates at Stawberry Field! They were covered with fans writing and were very cool to see :)

We also drove though the neighborhoods of Paul and John as well as their first manager, and got to see their houses as well. Paul and John's houses are both better identified and are now sort of historic sites, which are not lived in anymore. (Unlike George's house that has a nice old lady living in it apparently!)

This huge cathedral is visible from all over Liverpool as it is up on a hill kind of above the rest of the city. It is where Paul auditioned for the choir when he was young, and was actually cut from auditions for not having a strong enough voice! Whoops! I'm sure glad he didn't get too discouraged!

We also found a Beatles themed Lambanana

The Magical Mystery Tour ended right by the cavern club and were so excited to go see the real place where the Beatles first performed! The club was closed down in the 70s, ended up caving in part way (it's a couple stories underground) but was later restored using all original materials down to the original bricks! So though it is different from the exact club the Beatles knew, it was still SUCH a cool place to see and was definitely a fun place to hang out and have a few drinks! (and if you know me you know I was super excited to find that they had STRONGBOW on tap!)

They still have live music performances everyday, and we saw a couple different acts, a local musician, and even a tribute to John Lennon!

Outside the Cavern Club and down the street is an Eleanor Rigby statue, which of course we stopped for a photo-op at and took some time to miss our pups back home, one of which we named Rigby, inspired by the great song!