Looking for a weekend idea to party with your friends? Look no further, Liverpool has everything you ever wished for.
1. Party all weekend like a maniac
Liverpool is one of the best place to party in the world. Forget everything you thought you knew about a wild night out. Liverpool has it all, 10 times louder, bigger, messier and funnier. There’s a whole section about bars here. And don’t forget the local hangover cure: a banana, a full fat can of coke, a greasy spoon breakfast and a hair of the dog… you’ve been warned.
2. The Baltic Triangle
In every city you have the cool kid neighbourhood. Like the place where cool, creative, bohemian people hang out. In Liverpool, look no further, you want to head to the Baltic triangle.
Liverpool Icon Jayne Casey founded it to ensure Liverpool’s creative community would have a place to call home. In a few years she managed to turn this derelict area of the city into a thriving center for innovative, artistic, creative people. Unlike other hipster dominated areas, the Baltic has a very genuine vibe of creative cool with small cafes, cool bars, psychedelic music festivals and street art galore.
3. Music
Obviously. Unless you’ve been spending the last 50 years in a cave, you’ve heard of the Beatles. While there’s a museum at the Albert Docks, there isn’t much left in town for your to explore. Head to Matthew Street for the wall of Number 1 billboard hits from Liverpool artists and you’ll discover there is a whole bunch of artists besides the Beatles who’ve come from Liverpool. Every other bar will have a live gig at some point during the night, Studio 2 is a good place to start if you’re looking to start the night with live music.
Oh and if you want to know everything about the Beatles, here’s a radio show I worked on a few years ago: (in French http://bit.ly/1k30mOZ)
4. Capital of beautiful hair.
Like most continental Europeans, great hair means you’ve had a cut about 3 months ago, you’ve actually used a brush to put your hair up and you’re relatively proud of the result. Think again. Liverpool is the world’s capital of beautiful hair. Ladies spend fortune on their locks and anything less than a “big and bouncy” blow-dry is considered a bad hair day.
If you really want to experience Liverpool like a local and you’re a lady, head to the hairdresser on a Saturday morning. Get your hair “pinned” and buy a can of hairspray! The idea is to leave it “up” until you want to go out. It will sit nice and curly (with lots of hairspray) once you “de-pin” your hair. You should at least leave it for a day for a full effect.
Liverpool ladies take their hair very very seriously. If you want to look the part, you’ll need to rock those locks baby.
Unfortunately, there isn’t any extravagant equivalent for men. You can definitely get a hipster haircut at Voodoo Barbershop on Bold street, but I wouldn’t recommend it if you’re terribly hangover.
5. The only Grade II listed toilets in the UK
It was John Lennon’s favourite pub and it’s probably the city’s most beautiful one. The Philharmonic pub is as legendary as its guests and while the interior is very beautiful and reminiscent of Liverpool glorious days (most of it came from the same makers who designed the Titanic’s interior), the main attraction are the gent’s toilets (sorry ladies, the women’s toilets are pretty lame in comparison).