Your Favourite City You’ve Visited
Liverpool
This is a tough category, one of the toughest. I’ve always been a city boy, and while I love countryside and scenery I am always more at home in an urban setting. Most of my travel experiences have involved at least part of the time in cities, so plenty to choose from.
Of course, as anyone who knows me will tell you, I am an unofficial ambassador for Birmingham and I am happy to inform anybody who is prepared to listen that it is the best city in the world. But picking the place you live (even if you weren’t born there) kind of goes against the spirit of Travel Thursday.
With honourable mentions to my favourite cities elsewhere in the world – Budapest, Munich, Barcelona, Salzburg, Rome – I have chosen my favourite English city to visit as there is something very special about our country and I am proud to do a job that involves showing it off to visitors from around the world.
Liverpool really does have something for everyone, and just seems to get better and better as more regeneration takes place. Its architecture is stunning – the buildings at the pier head, the Albert Dock, the commercial quarter, St. George’s Hall and surrounding area and the cathedrals to name just a few. It has excellent museums, galleries and concert halls, a great selection of restaurants and pubs (the Philharmonic must surely be the most beautiful pub anywhere), fantastic shopping of all kinds, beautiful parks and green spaces and (in my experience at least) friendly and welcoming people that help to make a buzzing atmosphere by day and night. And then there is the musical heritage. As a fan of rock music generally, and the Beatles in particular, the city is a kind of pilgrimage and seeing the places where it all happened back in the 50s and 60s is a very special experience.
All in all, a fantastic city and if you’ve never been I highly recommend you put it on your list and get up there at the first opportunity. Everyone I have taken there has been amazed by how different it is to their expectations, how attractive and how exciting.
Ian Braisby's Blog 