Things to do in Liverpool

Nightlife · South of the centre, between the docks and Chinatown

A grid of warehouses and former sail-makers' yards turned into studios, breweries, skate parks, club nights and the densest concentration of small creative businesses in the city.

Local tip: It empties completely on a Monday and is unrecognisable by Friday night. The best way in is a weekday afternoon at one of the Cains Brewery Village units, when you can actually talk to the people who work there.

Food · Ropewalks, running up from Central station

Half a mile of almost entirely independent restaurants — Turkish, Syrian, Ethiopian, Japanese, Nepalese, vegan — with the bombed-out shell of St Luke's Church closing the top of the street.

Local tip: Book nothing and go early. The Bold Street rule is that queues form at the good places by seven and the ones with empty tables at eight are empty for a reason. St Luke's, left ruined since the 1941 blitz as a memorial, is open to walk through in summer.

Landmark · The waterfront

The Three Graces — the Royal Liver Building, the Cunard Building and the Port of Liverpool Building — standing over the largest group of Grade I listed buildings in Britain, with the Tate, the Maritime Museum and the Slavery Museum in the dock behind.

Local tip: UNESCO removed the city's World Heritage inscription in July 2021 over the scale of dock redevelopment north of here — one of only three sites ever delisted. Walk north past the new Everton stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock and you can see exactly what the argument was about, and decide for yourself.

Nature · Aigburth, three miles south of the centre

235 acres of Victorian parkland with a restored Palm House, a boating lake and a fake Alpine stream, with Lark Lane's terrace of independent cafes and pubs running off one corner.

Local tip: The Palm House puts on free concerts and markets most weekends and hardly anyone outside the postcode notices. Come down Lark Lane rather than the main gates — it is the only approach where the park arrives all at once.

Culture · The Georgian Quarter

A single street with an Anglican cathedral at one end — the largest in Britain, finished in 1978 — and a modernist Catholic one at the other, plus the Philharmonic Hall and the university between them.

Local tip: Pay to go up the Anglican tower for the best view in the city, then drink in the Philharmonic Dining Rooms, a Grade I listed pub where the gentlemen's marble urinals are a genuine listed feature and staff will let anyone look if the room is empty.

Culture · Edge Hill

A labyrinth of brick arches and shafts dug under the city in the 1810s and 1820s by Joseph Williamson, a retired tobacco merchant, for reasons nobody has ever established.

Local tip: Only a fraction is excavated and it is run largely by volunteers, so check the opening days before you go. It is the strangest thing in Liverpool and most residents have never been.