Things you didn't know about... Liverpool

Liverpool: home of the 24-hour party people
Liverpool has the most wine bars and off-licences per inhabitant of all UK towns and cities.

Liverpool inspired New York's Central Park
In 1850, the American Frederick Law Olmsted visited Liverpool's Birkenhead Park as part of a tour of Europe. He went on to use the park as inspiration for his design of Central Park, New York.

A tale of two cathedrals
Liverpool's Roman Catholic cathedral is a modern affair, built between 1962 and 1967. The Anglican cathedral is a little older, designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, the architect of the Tate Modern and Battersea Power Station. The foundation stone was laid by King Edward VII in 1904 but the cathedral was only finally completed in 1978. Scott didn't see the building finished but his final resting place is under the belltower.

Liverpool: a screen idol
Some of Britain's best-loved TV programmes have been set in Liverpool, including Brookside, Bread, Boys from the Blackstuff and The Liver Birds.

Ferry across Liverpool's River Mersey
Gerry & The Pacemakers had a hit with Ferry Cross the Mersey in 1964 but people have been crossing the River Mersey by ferry for 800 years. The ferry operates in a triangle between Liverpool Pier Head, Birkenhead Woodside and Seacombe on the Wirral. At the end of the 1600s, the journey across the Mersey took an hour and a half. Today it takes just 20 minutes.

Liverpool's musical legacy goes on and on
Everyone knows about The Beatles, but the city has always been a musical heartland. When punk went global in the late 1970s, Liverpool was again at the centre of a revolution. Eric's on Matthew Street opened in 1976, and played host to The Clash, The Police, the Sex Pistols and Elvis Costello.

Punk inspired a new generation of musicians, including successful 1980s bands Echo and the Bunnymen and The Teardrop Explodes. The Mersey Beat continues in the 2000s with bands like The Zutons and The Coral.

A massive memorial to the port of LIverpool
Built in 1901, the massive 14-storey Stanley Dock Tobacco Warehouse is a fitting memorial to Liverpool's days as a working port. It covers 26 acres and took 27 million bricks, 30,000 panes of glass and 8,000 tons of steel to complete.

"There's a barber showing photographs..."
Made famous by the Beatles, the real Penny Lane was saved from developers in the 1990s. Today's visitors continue to enjoy the sites mentioned in the song. To get there, take the number 86 bus from the city centre.