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Twenty years ago Albert Dock was one of the most derelict sites in the country, its warehouses rotting shells and the riverside setting miasmal. Nowadays the refurbished dock is the citys pride and joy, and a heritage tourism success story. The dock's waterways are now navigable, and its five-storey warehouses are filled with bars, shops and impressive museums - a stunning symbol of the city's hopes for recovery. The redevelopers had some fine base material to work with, as Albert Dock constitutes the largest group of Grade 1-listed buildings in Britain.
The dock was constructed between 1841 and 1848, and was one of the earliest 'enclosed docks' in the world. Now the shipping and trading activity of the past is commemorated in the highly praised Merseyside Maritime Museum. Imaginative exhibits focus on emigration, the slave trade, WWII and shipbuilding. Closer to the waterfront, the Tate houses the National Collection of Modern Art, and is the largest gallery of modern and contemporary art outside London. The museum devoted to the Beatles Story needs an overhaul, although the collection has recently been enhanced with the addition of John Lennon's famous Steinway upright (yes, the 'Imagine' piano), courtesy of purchaser George Michael, who outbid Robbie Williams and Noel and Liam Gallagher. On the opposite side of Canning Dock, the Museum takes a look at Merseyside entertainers (more Beatles), footballers, trades and TV shows.
The area north of Albert Dock is known as the Pier Head, named for a now-disappeared stone pier built in the 1760s. These days it's the departure point for Mersey ferries to Birkenhead rather than shiploads of emigrants heading off to New York. The Pier Head is dominated by a triumvirate of self-important buildings dating from the city's glory days: the Port, with its St Paul's-like dome (1907); the Italian palazzo-style Cunard Building (1916); and the iconic Royal Liver Building (pronounced 'lie-ver', not as in a liver and bacon fry-up), crowned by the famous copper liver birds (and we don't mean Nerys Hughes). The liver bird appears on the city's coat of arms, transformed over centuries of poor draftsmanship from an eagle carrying a fleur-de-lys to a cormorant with a beakful of seaweed.
Liverpudlian tourism would be noticeably thinner on the ground if the Beatles had grown up in Walthamstow. Moptop mecca is Mathew St, which might as well be renamed Beatles St, and is the focus of August's Beatles Week celebrations. The famous Cavern Club was housed in the cellar of a Victorian warehouse in Mathew St from 1957 until its demolition in 1973 - it seems city councillors seriously underestimated the longevity of the Fab Four's appeal. Between March 1961 and August 1963, the Beatles played a throat-numbing 292 shows at the Cavern, and it was here that Brian Epstein first saw the boys in action. The rebuilt Cavern opened back in 1984 and is owned by Cavern City Tours, the same people who are planning to offer Beatle-themed accommodation at the Hard Day's Night Hotel in 2003. They also run the 2.5-hour Magical Mystery Tours that leave from Albert Dock and terminate in Mathew St, having taken in Beatle homes, schools and birthplaces, and landmarks like Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields.
Between sets at the Cavern the lads would down a few pints at The Grapes, one of the few remaining authentic Beatle-related sights in the quarter.