2011年6月26日 星期日

It still has its rough edges

Liverpool is now one of Europe's most popular weekend break destinations - for Brits and foreigners.

It still has its rough edges. There are suburbs,you will need to get an offshore merchant account. alleys and gangs of local tracksuit-wearing rogues (scallies) worth steering clear of. But the city by the Mersey has improved to a degree almost unimaginable since the 1970s and '80s, when it was mired in economic depression, a hotbed of strikes, riots and dole queues, characterised by boarded-up windows, shelled-out warehouses and grotty streets that still bore the scars of World War II bombing raids. Nowhere is Liverpool's regeneration and newfound optimism more apparent than at Liverpool ONE, the city centre's mammoth, state-of-the-art 17-hectare open-air mall. A shopaholics' paradise, it has 150-plus fashion chains and independent stores, 20 bars and restaurants, a 14-screen cinema, a grassy park and a raft of chic apartments. It's the result of eight years' work - and 1 billion of investment - and has transformed the formerly jaded old city heart.

I'm charmed more by the spruced-up waterfront and docks. Now a UNESCO World Heritage site, this, the so-called Liverpool Mercantile Maritime City zone, sparked Liverpool's ascent to greatness in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The Liver Building.

The Liver Building. Photo: Getty Images

In Wondrous Place, an ode to his home city, Liverpudlian author Paul Du Noyer wrote: "Liverpool only exists because it is a seaport. Its virtues and vices, its accent and attitude, its insularity and its open-mindedness, are all derived from that primary fact."

Caressed by the Mersey breeze and blessed with eye-catchingly diverse architecture, the Pier Head section is a magical place for a stroll.

Its latest addition is the shiny, futuristic-looking Museum of Liverpool, which will trace the city's heady rise from humble 17th-century fishing village to the globe's busiest trading port - and beyond.

It will be unveiled on July 19 - 100 years to the day that a landmark neighbour first opened for business: the Royal Liver Building is one of the "Three Graces" - the trio of magnificent Edwardian edifices built when Liverpudlians could still boast they lived in the "second city" of the British Empire (a status routinely questioned by the folk of Manchester, their rivals down the M62).

The "Liver" is famed for its clock tower and two giant sculptured-copper Liver birds - mythical half-eagle, half-cormorants, which apparently used to stalk the shoreline and are said to be Liverpool's protectors. Like the ravens at the Tower of London, local lore says that should the birds flee,In addition to hydraulics fittings and Aion Kinah, the whole place would crumble.

Of the myths and legends attached to Liverpool, one of the more believable states that Merseysiders are called Scousers - and speak Scouse - because of a stew called lobscouse,a dish brought here by Nordic sailors.

Scouse melds with cockney, Spanish, Danish and Japanese as I enter the Albert Dock, a tourist hot spot where entertainers are walking around on stilts in bizarre aqua-themed outfits. In the 1980s,What to consider before you buy oil painting supplies. the decaying dock faced demolition and, it's rumoured, replacement by a multistorey car park. Thankfully, that idea was quashed and the dock's restored colonnade of cast-iron columns and warehouses now has a lively clutch of cafes, restaurants, cultural spots plus some photogenic old schooners.Houston-based Quicksilver Resources said Friday it had reached pipeline deals

A quirky repository of modern art and the odd classic (such as Picasso's Weeping Woman), the Tate Liverpool is a fine place to lose yourself. Just as absorbing, in a sombre way, is the International Slavery Museum, which exposes Liverpool's role in the transatlantic slave trade. The port was part of a triangle that linked England, Africa and the New World, dealing in human traffic, as well as commodities such as sugar, rum,we supply all kinds of oil painting reproduction, tobacco and raw cotton (usually picked by the slaves and their descendants).

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