LIVERPOOL & MERSEYSIDE

WHAT'S INCLUDED

Departure dates throughout 2008 & 2009
From 4 days durations
Executive coach travel throughout
From 3 nights dinner & full English breakfast at a 3 star hotel in the Liverpool area
All rooms with private en-suite facilities 
FREE insurance on selected departure dates (no upper age limit but subject to medical screening)

EXCURSION OPTIONS
A tour of Liverpool on the ‘Yellow Duckmarine’!
A visits to the Albert Dock including the Tate Liverpool, Maritime Museum, H.M. Customs & Excise National Museum
The fabulous shopping centre
A visit to the Beatles Story
A visit to the amazing Port Sunlight
A visit to Included visit to the Anderton Boat Lift & cruise
A visit to Ardley Hall
Many other visits also available - please ask for details
Entrances into National Trust (NT) properties are free for card carrying members. Non members must pay locally.

SAMPLE 5 DAY ITINERARY
Day 1 Depart from your selected pick up points and travel to Liverpool and when having checked into the hotel, dinner is included tonight. Liverpool was awarded the title 'Capital of Culture 2008'. The architecture is world-class, with more listed buildings then any city outside London, and at the heart of the city its waterfront sits proudly alongside treasures like the Taj Mahal and Pyramids at Giza as a World Heritage Site. Many gems of National Museums fall within the heritage site including the refurbished World Museum and the Walker Art Gallery. The Tate Liverpool, the Merseyside Maritime museum and the Museum of Liverpool life
all have their homes on the waterfront.  

Day 2 - This morning we start the day with
a tour of Liverpool onboard The Yellow
Duckmarine! The fun begins the second you board your DUCK - an authentic World War II landing vehicle - at the Albert Dock, where else? Your hour-long trip begins on the road, taking in the historic Waterfront, touring the famous sights of the City, then making a dramatic "SPLASHDOWN" in the Salthouse Dock. It’s the start of an amazing dockland adventure, ending at the Albert Dock. It’s a trip you’ll never forget! You will then have some free time at the famous Albert Docks which is a truly stunning architectural triumph. Opened in 1846, it soon became a treasure house of precious cargoes from all over the world. Today a £100 million redevelopment has transformed it into one of Liverpool's busiest and most cosmopolitan centres and a top heritage attraction. The Albert Dock offers entertainment from fashionable bars and restaurants to the Tate Liverpool, the famous Beatles Story, the Maritime Museum and HM Customs & Excise National Museum. Combined with niche retail boutiques the Albert Dock offers entertainment within beautiful historic surroundings. You can visit to the Beatles Story this afternoon Established in 1990, The Beatles Story is committed to providing a world class visitor attraction, which lives up to the universal acclaim of the Beatles. The experience is divided into 18 separate features, and charts the success of the group from their early days in Hamburg right through to the eventual break-up of the band and their subsequent solo careers. There is also a "Living History" Audio Tour where the voices of Brian Epstein, Sir Paul McCartney, Allan Williams, Sir George Martin and Cynthia Lennon take you on a personal journey through the Fab Four's meteoric rise to fame. You will have the majority of the day free today to see the museums or sights that you want to in the city centre and dinner is included tonight.

Day 3 - Today we head towards the Wirral where we visit Port Sunlight Village. In the context of the Victorian era, in which it was conceived, the creation of Port Sunlight Village by William Hesketh Lever was unparalleled. The tumultuous changes wreaked by the Industrial Revolution still had not been fully embraced even as late as the early twentieth century. The combination of a content, healthy and efficient workforce was a vision held by some philosophers and luminaries of the time but Lever was one of the first entrepreneurs to realise such a dream. From his middle-class upbringing in Bolton, Lancashire to his ambitious trips around the world, Lever employed lessons learned to good effect in housing and employing the workforce of his soap business. You will have time to explore at your leisure here before we return across the Mersey for a visit to Speke Hall (NT) where Tudor times melt into the Arts & Crafts Movement thanks to the careful restoration carried out by owner Fredrick Leyland in 1867. Amongst some of the grander antiques and Tudor furnishings can be found De Morgan fire tiles, grates decorated with the Arts & Crafts sunflower leitmotif, Morris & Co furniture and William Morris wallpaper including one of his earliest designs 'Trellis'. Hidden behind the bookshelves in the Library is the perfectly preserved Morris wallpaper 'Daisy'. A house of surprises for sure which a fully equipped Victorian kitchen and servants' hall which enables visitors to see behind the scenes - entry is free for card carrying members (non NT members will pay entrance locally). We then return to Liverpool for dinner at the hotel

Day 4 Today we travel outside of the city and into Cheshire to include two very different visits. We first visit the Anderton Boat Lift located near Northwich which is one of the greatest monuments to Britain's last canal age and known as the "Cathedral of the Canals". The lift is a working engineering marvel of the waterways created in 1875. The Operations Centre boast's a 2 storey facility with cafe area for that much needed 'rest bite. The lower level houses an exhibition for the lift and the lift control console is situated within the exhibition to allow visitors to see how the operators control the lift as it carries out it's daily schedule. This visit also includes a River trip of approximately 40 minutes - relaxing as you cruise to Northwich Town Swing Bridge along the Weaver Navigation, returning to the Anderton Boat Lift Visitor Centre. From here we then continue onto Arley Hall whose gardens were recently voted amongst the top 50 in Europe and in the top 10 in Britain. The Gardens are a plantsman's paradise and are celebrated for the oldest and finest double herbaceous borders in the country. Arley Hall is one of Cheshire's most charming country houses, the Hall and Chapel were built between 1832 and 1845 and are a prized example of the Victorian Jacobean style. We will return to Liverpool later in the day - dinner is included.

Day 5 - Having checked out of the hotel this morning we journey back to your original arrival point making a comfort stop en-route.

PRICE & SUPPLEMENTS
Price on application 
Single room supplement & minimum numbers apply

HOW TO BOOK

Choose your departure date
For your instant quote / more information:
Call Simply Groups on 01943 605999 or
click here to use our online enquiry form.

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