If I’m entirely honest, Liverpool has never struck me as somewhere I’d want to go. I’d seen Brookside and had a pre-conception that they were football mad and hard as nails with an ear grating accent to boot.

We got the train in, which was a short 30 minute journey through towns I’d never heard of before, and without really going through areas that seemed to be getting more and more built up, like the journey into London and through it’s suburbs (although some might argue that the entire area between Manchester and Liverpool is suburbia), we were suddenly there. I had no idea what to expect from this big city, but stepping out of the Victorian station and walking half a block had some shocks.

First off was the strange temporary looking structure wrapped in brightly coloured plastic, which as we walked further around, proved to be a very un-temporary shopping centre. The curvy, brightly coloured plastic with graphics printed on it was a way of hiding a very ordinary 70s mall- the type where all the shops face outwards around a square on a few levels. If different periods and pieces of architecture could be ‘No-More-Nails’-ed together, rather than knocking it down and drawing up new plans, this would be the outcome.

Then, right next to this gaffa taped creation, was this massive square, that wouldn’t have looked out of place in central London. There was an enormous building which steps leading up to the front of it and huge columns all along the front, with a few statues dotted about, and I immediately could sense a feeling of history. Some of it’s uses include being a law court and a concert hall, and the huge square out the front has seen The Beatles play on it, along with many others.

From there, we wandered down to the Albert Dock, where we were overtaken by a DuckBus. For those of you not aquainted with DuckBuses, they are amphibious buses that take you on a tour of many cities, both by road, and by river. We decided immediately that this was the way forward, so we brought our ticket and we were off.

The tour guide was a very friendly woman who gave a very funny and lighthearted tour, packed with information. I saw the two cathedrals- one absolutely stunning, which took more than a hundred years to build, and the other- Paddy’s Wigwam, a weird cylindrical steel structure that apparently has one of Europes largest stained glass windows, but I didn’t get to see that.

I also saw where John Lennon married his first wife (apparently there were roadworks outside during the ceremony and they could hardly hear a word being said) and I also saw the ’streaky bacon building’ where the White Star Line’s offices were (the people that were in charge of building the Titanic). Only up north would they call a building the ’streaky bacon building’!

Once we were on dry land again we went for a wander around the Albert Dock, which houses a couple of museums, a Tate gallery, a few shops and a lot of bars and restaurants. We had some lunch and a drink (I had a pint of Magner’s, much to the dressed up lady on the next table’s disgust- she’d never feel comfortable drinking a pint!) and then we wandered back up into town.

We walked through Liverpool One, the brand spanking new shopping district that has been recently built, which has a rooftop garden and all the big name shops, housed in a half indoor, half outdoor shopping centre. It all looks very swanky, and not at all like I was expecting, and then it was time to wander back up to the station past Dickie Lewis (a famous statue of a naked man, which caused a stir when first errected because of his size- and the size of one part of him in particular!).

I actually really enjoyed my day in Liverpool, far more than I thought I would. The people were so friendly, very well turned out (putting me to shame in my denim skirt and vest top!) and incredibly proud of their city, proud of it’s past and it’s present. They were definitely footy mad, they definitely had a mad accent that I couldn’t always understand, and a strange sense of humour that I understood less than the accent, but they all came across as much friendlier than anyone you’d encounter in London. My pre-conceptions weren’t entirely wrong, but it’s definitely somewhere I want to spend more time.