Wayfaring Day 194

January 11, 2026 Sunday

Before leaving Huddersfield we visited with our hosts and the pets for a little while. Once everything was in order we climbed into our Citroen and started driving toward Liverpool. This time we stayed to the freeway which was much easier especially considering the rain. We made it to the airport and ohotel with no issues at about 12:30. We found a local gas station and filled up the car. Much to our chagrin we had some issues with dropping our bags off at the hotel before taking our car back to the rental car company. The gps took us into a parking lot that was metered. We only drove through but it charged us £12 for the mistake. We then tried to go to a drop off area next to the hotel. We were able to unload and get our bags to the lobby. But upon exiting the parking area we were charged an additional £12 for that 10 minutes. This was just an unusual situation in which the hotel has no ground level drop off area that is not within an area that charges for entry and exit. The hotel is directly across from the terminal but is also on top of a parking garage. In retrospect we should have taken the car back to Avis and just walked over to the hotel with our bags as we did when we arrived.

Unfortunately this took so much time we had to use a taxi to get to our Magical Mystery Tour in order to get there by 2:00. The lucky side was that our driver was a like a tour guide and we received an interesting tour on our way to the pier. We had seen the two cathedrals and John Lennons home before we even got to the tour. We made the tour with a few minutes to spare and were on our way in our magical mystery tour bus.

The tour was a lot of fun with people singing along to Beatles music while our funny and witty tour guide pointed out all the Beatles sites. Were able to get pics at everyone’s house except for Ringo’s. We saw two of his homes but we did not get off the bus for it. We were able to get off the bus for one of John’s houses, George’s house and the McCartney house. We also were able to step off the bus at Penny Lane and at Strawbery Fields. At the other end of Penny Lane we drove by the barbers, bankers and the bus stop in the round about. There were, of course, many other sites and we just had an overall good time. David told our guide it was the most fun he had had having his picture made in front of a street sign and a gate.

At the end of the tour they drop you off near the Cavern Club so that you can, if you like, go in for free using your ticket. Since the Cavern Club is one of those bucket list type experiences we went there straight away. This turned out to be one of the most fun experiences of our time in the UK. The vibe was so cool and the band was very good. We stayed for the bands entire set and would have stayed longer had we not eaten in quite some time.

We shopped for a little while and even bought a couple of things to commemorate our short time in Liverpool. When it started raining we decided to find a place to quickly get inside and have some food. That place turned out to be that British favorite: Popeyes! We had some chicken and fries and once the rained stopped we ventured out again. We decided to take the bus back to the airport. This was partly due to feeling like we had spent so much on “parking” and taxi that we should take a cheaper route. It did take longer but not enough to feel bad about it. We were not in a big hurry anyway. We walked across the street to the hotel and went to bed semi early due to having an 8:30 flight in the morning.