Liverpool: My Beatles Pilgrimage

We walked off the ship straight into the Three Graces and the Mersey smelled exactly like history and salt. The Beatles Story at the Albert Dock had us tearing up at John's round spectacles and the Cavern Club (the real rebuilt one) still smells of beer and 1962. We did the Magical Mystery Tour bus – driving past Penny Lane, Strawberry Field, and the childhood homes felt like trespassing on sacred ground.

We had lunch at proper Scouse stew at The Philharmonic Dining Rooms – a Victorian palace of marble and mosaics where John Lennon once said the only problem was "the men's toilet is too beautiful to use." In the afternoon we went to the Merseyside Maritime Museum and the heart-breaking International Slavery Museum on the same site – the contrast is brutal and necessary. The pros: genuinely warm Scousers who talk to you like family. The cons: some areas still rough around the edges, but the city wears its scars proudly.