England Day 4: Fab Four Fun

We woke fairly early on Wednesday morning to another cold, windy, and rainy day. We had scheduled a 9a tour of the Beatles' sights in Liverpool. But first we grabbed some breakfast at the hotel restaurant.

I had eggs benedict and Mike had a sausage and egg sandwich.

Mike is a huge Beatles fan so he was looking forward to our 3-hour private tour. Our guide, Jay, arrived right on time and we made our way to our first stop, the Mount Pleasant register office. This is where John Lennon married his first wife, Cynthia Powell, on August 23, 1962.

John Lennon was born at the Liverpool Maternity Hospital on October 9, 1940, now a student residence hall. Sixty years later, this plaque was placed there in his honor.

From there, you can glimpse the interesting architecture of the Roman Catholic Metropolitan Cathedral, also called Paddy's Wigwam.

After John and Cynthia were married, they lived in Brian Epstein's secret apartment at 36 Falkner Street. Epstein was the manager of the Beatles and a suspected homosexual. He kept a secret apartment where he met his boyfriends out of the public eye. While living at this apartment, John Lennon wrote, "Do You Want to Know a Secret?" on the toilet there.

John first met Cynthia in 1957 when they were both students at the Liverpool College of Art, shown here in the background.

Also in the picture, Jay and I are standing by a sculpture of concrete luggage called, "A Case History." Each bag has a tag referring to a notable person or institution from Liverpool. These guitar cases have tags labeled for Paul McCartney and John Lennon.

The lambanana, the artistic symbol of Liverpool. It's a cross between a lamb and a banana, both once common cargo on Liverpool's trading docks. There are eight of these across Liverpool and each is painted in a different pattern.

We took a small break from Beatles' sights and stopped off at the breathtakingly beautiful Liverpool Anglican Cathedral, the largest cathedral in the UK which took 74 years to build.

The neighboring graveyard is over 600 years old.

Back on the Beatles' route, we stopped off at Ringo Starr's birthplace and first home at 9 Madryn Street.

When the bricking was re-done, the construction guys wrote the word "Beatles" acrosst the top in mortar.

A few blocks away is the bar where Ringo's mom worked when he was a child. Coincidentally, our guide's family owned this building at one time and when he and his now-wife were dating, she fell asleep in the second floor bedroom with a lit cigarette and almost burned the whole place down.

Around the corner from the bar, at 10 Admiral Grove, is the home where Ringo lived until he was 21 years old.

We then made our way to the infamous Penny Lane, the bus stop on the street where Paul McCartney and John Lennon would meet to catch the bus.

"the shelter in the middle of the roundabout"

The barber shop mentioned in the song

Not far from Penny Lane is Paul McCartney's childhood home at 20 Forthlin Road. Here Paul wrote "I Saw Her Standing There" and "When I'm 64."

John Lennon's childhood home, where he lived with his Aunt Mimi, is also not far.

And just behind it is the Salvation Army children's home where John played as a child, which inspired the song, "Strawberry Fields Forever".

And, finally, the home of the last Beatle, George Harrison, where he lived just before becoming famous and buying his parents a new house, at 174 Makets Lane.

Paul and John met for the first time at this church hall during a concert of various bands in 1957. Paul helped John tune his guitar.

Across the street is the graveyard where later they would go to drink and write songs. There they would be inspired by the gravestone of Eleanor Rigby.

Our ride for the tour.

The tour ended with a stop at the Casbah Coffee Club, the place where the Beatles truly got their start. The Casbah was a small club located in the cellar of the Best family home in Liverpool. Mona Best got the idea of the club from a similar one she'd heard about in London. She sold all of her Indian gold jewelry and bet the proceeds on a horse with 33:1 odds. That horse won and she bought this big house and opened the Casbah in 1959. The Beatles, minus Ringo Starr and then known as the Quarrymen, played at the Casbah quite frequently and even helped Mona paint the inside before the grand opening.

Lennon carved his name in the wood wall.

Mona's son, Pete Best, became the Beatles' first drummer in 1960. He was later fired from the band and replaced by Ringo Starr. His brother, Rory, gives the tours of the Casbah.

The unbelievably small stage.

Rory Best and Mike on the larger stage built a few years later.

It was early afternoon when we left the Casbah and still rainy and cold. It was our plan to travel out to the beach to see Antony Gormley's "Another Place" statues but it was just too miserably cold. Jay offered to drop us off at the Cavern Club, a larger downtown club where the Beatles played when they became more famous. We agreed.

Jay had been an excellent tour guide and we enjoyed our morning with him. He even made the Beatles interesting for someone who is not a big fan.

A musician outside the Cavern Club.

The Cavern Club has been the center of rock 'n roll in Liverpool for over 50 years. It's several stories underground and the walls are made entirely of brick. The Beatles first played there in 1961. Since the weather was so bad, we stayed there for a good three hours or so and watched several sets. The music was great and they even had a great strawberry cider on tap that I loved.

After the club, we walked to a little shop and bought some souvenirs then took a taxi to Italian Club Fish for our dinner reservation.

Dinner was fabulous! We shared a bottle of white wine. Mike had smoked salmon with toast and I had lightly fried calamari and prawns with chips.

We walked outside after dinner to find a taxi back to the hotel and a local bum asked us for some money. When we answered that we didn't have any cash, he could tell we were American. He then asked us if we thought Bush was a good man. What a loaded question! Now I don't think Bush was a good President but I don't think he's a bad person so I said yes. Well that just opened the door. He then started on this huge rant about Bush and Saudi Arabia and how he wanted to teach us some history. Ugh! I told him to get lost and we went on our way. It then took us three attempts to get a taxi. The first one we tried had no idea where our hotel was. The second one we tried, we believe, the driver was high as a kite. Finally, the third one was sober and seemed to know where he was going. Success!