Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eye!

I have to split up my Liverpool trip into several "albums" because I took so many pictures! The above pictures are from my Beatles Liverpool Magical Mystery Tour. And I'm not being punny, that's what the tour is called, complete with a big painted magical mystery tour bus! Two Liverpudlians took us around the outskirts of Liverpool and in and around the city to all of the major points in Beatles history. So let's go through them, shall we?

The first picture is, of course, none other than the real Penny Lane. We all know the song was based on a real place in Liverpool, but actually standing on the street, complete with the Barber's shop (also above) and the roundabout, was mind-blowing!

The Beatles' Story, in the second picture, is the main Beatles attraction in Liverpool. I've posted a few pictures from inside the museum, with the George part of the trip, but this is the outside of it. It's structured like you're going down into the Cavern Club. Built on the historic Albert Dock, The Beatles' Story is an incredible and fantastic museum that really gets you as close to the boys as you can get outside of journeying to the actual places themselves. You begin in the 1940s during Hitler's Blitz on England during World War II (Liverpool was the second-most bombed city, short of just London) and you're taken through Liverpool in the 1950s, John forming the Quarrymen, Hamburg, Beatlemania, U.S. tours, the psychedelic years, the breakup and finally each of the four's solo careers. The cool thing is that they have some of the most valuable artifacts, such as George's first guitar, but they place them in reproductions of entire places and rooms. They recreate the Kaiserkeller, the club they played at in Hamburg, the street that the Cavern is located on, and the Cavern Club as it looked in 1962, complete with "Twist and Shout" playing ear-shatteringly loud. The Beatles' Story is the most comprehensive way to not only learn about The Beatles, but to understand their story. I loved it so much and recommend it to EVERYONE regardless of how big of a fan you are.

From there, we have the home Ringo was born in. These houses are shut down now, but that little one that I had to zoom in on is where the first Beatle was born on July 7, 1940.

St. Silas School is the next picture, which is where Ringo attended school for a few years. He was very sick as a child and was consequently in the hospital most of the time that he would have been in school.  So when he finally went back, the administrators had to re-enroll him because nobody recognized him!

After that is THE barber shop on Penny Lane that Paul famously references in 1967's "Penny Lane."

Sorry about the reflection of me in the window, but this next house is the childhood home of The Beatles' manager Brian Epstein. Shows how wealthy he was compared to the boys.

Perhaps the most historical place that we visited was St. Peter's Church. We only got to drive by it but this was the sight of one of the most famous meetings of all time. In 1957, John Lennon met Paul McCartney in the yard at this very church! I get the chills just thinking about it.

John's art college is the next picture. He didn't attend the Liverpool College of Art very long, but he did meet a young man named Stuart Sutcliffe here. Stu became the original bassist of The Beatles and traveled with them to Hamburg, Germany.

Finally, the last picture is the sight of John and Cynthia's marriage in 1963. It was a hasty wedding, partially due to Cynthia's pregnancy, but the two were married until 1969, having one child, Julian Lennon, who is the subject of "Hey Jude."

I'm sorry this is such a long post, but this was the bulk of my trip to Liverpool this summer. I have a few other pictures from Liverpool and then some from London.