Back to Where It Once Belonged

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For die-hard devotees such as Rachael Sullivan, visiting from Wheeling, W.Va., Liverpool is the Promised Land. "This is the birthplace of rock-and-roll," the 19-year-old says. "For me it's my Mecca, my coming home. I just came to Liverpool for the day with my parents, but I will definitely be coming back."

Sullivan and her parents have paid about $500 for a day-long personalized tour of key sites in the Beatles legend. The tour includes meeting drummer Pete Best's brother and having a chat with the woman who lives in Ringo Starr's former house. Fans also can take a National Trust tour of Mendips and 20 Forthlin Rd., the childhood homes of John Lennon and McCartney. There's also the Hard Days Night Hotel, which opened last month with rooms starting at $340 a night. The Lennon Suite, with its white baby grand piano and views of the city, will set you back a cool $1,300.

No Beatles tour would be complete without a visit to the basement Cavern Club, where the great adventure began. The club was demolished in the early '70s and rebuilt next door 10 years later, using reclaimed bricks from the original. I walk to the city's Cavern Quarter, descend into the dungeon and order a pint. It's quiet now, with only a few tourists peering into the gloom and taking pictures. But in a few hours the place will be a seething mass of people rocking to the next big thing as condensation drips from the ceiling.

Worn out by the mere thought, I head instead to my hotel, 62 Castle St., a perfect example of the fusion of old and new Liverpool. The architecturally protected building dates from 1868, and many of its original features have been preserved, but the overwhelming feeling inside is sleek boutique. Sitting in the bar, cocktail in hand, I could be in Monte Carlo. Until the sound of loud, cackling laughter from a well-juiced table nearby shatters the dream and I think, no -- I'm definitely in Liverpool.

Because if this city knows anything, it is how to have a good time. Every weekend, people of all ages, shapes and sizes pull on their glad rags and hit the town, packing into pubs with live music or squeezing into bars. For old time's sake, I sip a quiet pint in the Philharmonic Dining Rooms, a beautifully preserved Victorian pub that is worth a visit for the toilets alone, before moving on to Alma de Cuba, an extravagantly converted church. Here, a scantily clad carnival dancer shimmies on the altar, and at 11 p.m. on the dot, thousands of rose petals are launched from the balcony onto the delirious crowd below. I finish the evening at the gloriously retro Magnet, where revelers cram into horseshoe-shaped booths in the upstairs bar while in the funky nightclub below, young men break dance to throbbing hip-hop beats.

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Liverpool's cultural quarter is centered on three main buildings off William Brown Street. The Victorian kitsch of the Walker Art Gallery and the mummies of the World Museum Liverpool are much as I remember them from school trips, but St. George's Hall, which once had a slightly dilapidated air, has been transformed by a $46 million makeover.

As opulent as any ballroom at the Palace of Versailles, St. George's fully restored Great Hall, with its magnificent chandeliers, vaulted ceiling and gargantuan pipe organ, is simply jaw-dropping. Built as a venue for music events, St. George's Hall also housed the city's law courts. A tour through the underground cells, where 150-year-old graffiti adds to the eerie atmosphere, ends in the courtroom where 130 men and seven women were sentenced to death.

Two of the most important buildings in Liverpool are not in the cultural quarter. The cathedrals -- one Church of England, one Roman Catholic -- stand like heavyweight boxers staring each other down at either end of Hope Street, about a 10-minute walk west of the main museums. The Anglican Liverpool Cathedral, built in stages between 1904 and 1978, is the largest in Britain and the fifth-largest in the world. Looking up at the gigantic vaulted interior, volunteer Jean Stockforth says simply: "It just has this wow factor. How can you explain that feeling?"

A five-minute walk away is its Catholic counterpart, the strikingly modern Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King, a work of classic 1960s perfection. The light from the rainbow-colored stained-glass windows plays on the huge steel chandelier, which is designed to echo the shape of the crown of thorns.

I've lingered too long, but as I dash to the station I stop to take a last look at the city. The rain that has drenched me all weekend has finally stopped. A blustery wind jostles the clouds, and there's a hint of blue sky on the horizon. It's been a long, cold, lonely winter for Liverpool, but here comes the sun. And it's all right.

Alexandra Topping last wrote for Travel about Paris's Velib bicycle program.