Liverpool Top Ten

A city as independent of spirit as Liverpool shouldn't need an EU-sponsored event to rally round. But, with the awarding of the Capital of Culture title for 2008 that's pretty much exactly what happened. The city that gave the world the Beatles and, consequently, pop music, and a football team intent on only handing back the silverware of European football on temporary loan basis, has shaken itself down, called the builders in, and emerged refreshed and revitalised. 

It's an excellent choice for a weekend break, offering a clutch of world-class attractions within a tight core of handsome (and UNESCO preserved) mercantile buildings, a spirited nightlife and resurgent dining scene. Liverpool One, the city's new leisure and shopping quarter, promises to keep the region's Wags and wannabees in retail heaven when it opens in 2008. 

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Liverpool Hotels 

1.Liverpool Pubs

Address: Liverpool
Whereas neighbouring cities have confused culture for commerce - Liverpool didn't sacrifice its soul when the sandblasters came in. Its traditional city boozers are as vibrant, welcoming and atmospheric as ever. If you're after colourful company and a great country-and-western jukebox, head to the pint-sized Globe (Cases Street). Now smoke-free and cosy, the stained glass snugs of the Railway Tavern (Tithebarn Street), the riotous plasterwork of The Crown (Lime Street), and the stately Victorian temple of The Vines (Lime Street) all pour a great, CAMRA-approved pint of locally brewed Cains bitter. Students flock to The Pilgrim (Pilgrim Street) for its cheap ale while the Baltic Fleet (Wapping) is one of the last remaining dockers' pubs, serving excellent home-brewed ales and Sunday roasts.

2.World Museum Liverpool

Address: William Brown Street, Liverpool (Free. Daily, 10am-5pm)
After a prolonged, multi-million pound face-lift Liverpool's premier museum emerged with the somewhat aggrandized 'World' tag added to its name. To be fair, if any city's collection could just about get away with such lofty pretension, Liverpool could. The 'Second City of the Empire', Liverpool was, during the 18th and 19 th century, Britain's gateway to the world - and back again. Not surprisingly, the city's merchants garnered trinkets and treasures from all points. They're now wonderfully exhibited in the museum's plush World Cultures gallery, together with an excellent, child-friendly Bug House and planetarium (tickets £3)

3.Liverpool Football Museum

Address: Anfield Road, Liverpool (Museum and Ground Tour £10/£6, Museum £5/£3. Open Daily 10am-5pm)
Something of a 'last chance to see' despite a recent renovation. As plans for the club's new stadium in nearby Stanley Park get ever-more elaborate, it's good to witness the routes of England's most successful football club  (although, technically, Anfield's roots belong to rivals, Everton, who played here first, but let's gloss over that). No shortage of silverware, the Kop's quasi-religious significance to fans, and an 'access all areas' tour makes this football museum a Premiership attraction for fans, and football historians.

4.Pier Head

Address: The Strand, Liverpool 
In a clumsy attempt at branding around five years ago, the city's tourist board planted a myth that every true Scouser referred to the city's grand-looking collection of landmark waterfront buildings as 'The Three Graces'. They never did. In fact, they're really a disparate grouping of three, very different architectural conceits - sharing only the same stretch of waterfront in common. Chief among them, the Liver Building is  part art-nouveau, part gothic, and 100% iconic. Once, this was the tallest building in the UK. Now it's overshadowed by identikit new apartment blocks. But it's still reason enough to visit this breezy waterfront. And the building can still claim to house Britain's largest clock faces (yes, that includes Big Ben). Crowning the building are the city'sornithological emblems, the scrawny necked Liver Birds, designed by Carl Bernard Bartles. Legend has it that, should they fly away, the city will crumble. Their tethers were obviously loosened a touch in the 80s, but they seem pretty grounded these days. Its neighbours, the Venetian palazzo-esque Cunard Building and domed Port of Liverpool building formed the most persuasive of arguments which led to this chunk of the city being awarded UNESCO World Heritage status.

5.Ferry Across the Mersey

Address: Pier Head, Liverpool (£5.10/ £2.85 Daily, times vary)
What's the best way to see a waterfront city? Wake up at the back... Yep, take to the water. Liverpool scores bonus points because they've even named a song after it. Although it loses points because, by the end of the cruise they actually play it. Oh dear. Still, on a good day the forty minute-or-so trip is a delight. Brief commentary offers at-a-glance facts about the major buildings you can spot from the deck while strategically placed information boards reveal that this route is the oldest paid river crossing in the UK, dating back to 1150. There's a cafe onboard. Alight at Seacombe for Spaceport, an incongruously placed visitor attraction complete with planetarium and hands-on astronomy exhibits aimed at young children.

6.Cathedrals

Anglican, Upper Duke Street, Liverpool (Suggested donation £3. Daily, 8am-6pm); Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King, Mount Pleasant. (Donations welcome. Daily, 8am-6pm)
How do you like your cathedrals? Vaulted, vast and shadowy, or striking, light-filled and modern? Liverpool has both. 'The Great Space' is the appropriate new name given to the city's towering red sandstone Anglican cathedral, which dominates the city skyline for miles around. Sir Giles Gilbert Scott's masterpiece, the largest in Britain, features the highest and heaviest carillon of bells in the world, and Britain's mightiest organ. Superlatives aside, it's a remarkably intimate space within, with an ornately carved Lady Chapel, fabulous refectory (great for lunches), and stunning stained glass. Take a tour of the tower, if you're not afraid of heights, for an unsurpassed view over the handsomely laid-out streets of Georgian Liverpool below. At the other end of Hope Street, complete now with dramatic new piazza-style entrance, is Sir Frederick Gibberd's spirited, almost Latin-American looking 'cathedral for a new world'. It sits atop a crypt designed by Lutyens for a far grander scheme, scuppered when funds ran out after the Second World War (it's home, now, to the city's annual Beer Festival, every February). Light from the cathedral's 360 degree stained-glass lantern tower floods the interior with colour as the sun moves over the structure's 'crown of thorns' spire. Excellent visitor centre and cafe.

7.Beatles Story

Address: Albert Dock, Liverpool (£8.99/£4. Daily, 10am-6pm)
After a troubled start, this brisk journey through the fab-four's story is now just about worth the steep entrance fee. If you're a Beatles fan it's almost mandatory, of course, but there's enough of interest here to please even those who've just got 'Number Ones' on CD. From their beginnings in Woolton village, through to the Hamburg days, the Cavern and the world, the Beatles' journey is mapped out in a series of tableaux and accompanying colourful audio commentary. Along the way you'll see George Harrison's first guitar, and John Lennon's iconic white piano (actually now owned by George Michael) and, of course, lots of grainy shots of the original boy-band at work and play. The Cavern Club itself, over in Matthew Street, is a more-or-less faithful reproduction of the original (which actually stood a little to the left of today's venue) offering a  'Magical Mystery Tour' (Daily, £12.95) around sites connected with the boys, including Penny Lane. The club also arranges tours to Paul McCartney's house, or you can take the National Trust's own tour (Four tours daily, £13/£2. 20, Forthlin Road, Allerton. Open Mar-Oct. Four tours daily. Info line 0870 900 0256). Both tours take in Mendips, John Lennon's childhood home in leafy Woolton.

8.Fact

Address: Wood Street, Liverpool (Free. Daily 11am-11pm, Sun 11am-10.30pm)
A natural meeting point for the city's creative types, Fact (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) is a vast exhibition space-cum-cinema, with a busy bar and cafe, wi-fi access and media lounge. Shows vary in quality but usually offer something worth seeing, if only to go away musing on the meaning of it all. Its remit - to commission and present film, video and new media art forms - sometimes seems to constrain rather than facilitate genuinely captivating new work yet, nonetheless, this is a constantly engaging venue, and one the city desperately needed. Many cite FACT's success as central to the city's successful bid to host 2008's Capital of Culture year. Stalwart arts centre, the Bluecoat offers a similar mix of culture and meeting points, but focuses primarily on visual art and installations.  It's set within Liverpool's oldest surviving city-centre building - a handsome, Queen Anne-style building, once a church school for boys.

9.Nightlife

Address: Liverpool 
From the embers of super-club Cream (which still holds one-offs at its Nation venue on Parr street, the city rapidly remodeled its evening economy, creating a fragmented scene where local promoters replaced superstar DJs, and small, dimly-lit cellars replaced hangars. First out of the blocks, Chibuku (named after a potent African beer) is home to Liverpool's best eclectic-house sets. Circus, their co-production with award-winning local DJ, Yousef, features breaks, electro and trance (The Barfly, Seel Street). Magnet (Hardman Street) is an NY-style all-night bar/club with a funky music policy encompassing indie, soul and reggae, drawing the city's friendliest crowd. Gay club Garlands (Eberle Street) is hedonistic and dressy while Zanzibar (Seel Street) features good local bands and a broad music policy.

10.St George's Hall

Address: William Brown Street, Liverpool (Free. Daily)
The finest neo-classical building in Europe, and a favourite of Prince Charles, St George's Hall was designed by architect Harvey Lonsdale Elmes when he was only 25 years old, and is just about the most self-confident statement of prosperity the city could have erected at the height of its 19th century powers. Recently refurbished, the interior is dominated by the airy main hall complete with vaulted ceiling and glittering chandeliers, its Minton-tiled floor hidden for most of the year beneath parquet. It's not all overblown grandeur, though - its small concert room is a little gem, and occasionally hosts performances and readings, much as it did in its 19th century heyday, when Charles Dickens was a regular visitor. The room was designed by Charles Cockerell, who was brought in to complete the project after Elmes' untimely death.

 Photographs courtesy of Liverpool Tourist Board