Mersey, Mersey

We almost decided not to visit Liverpool but are glad we did. It's a city with important history, the museums are good, the downtown vibrant, and, there's always the Beatles. After the Walker Museum and environs, we walked into the main shopping district, which was crowded like Xmas, then to the Prince Albert Pier, then to the Cavern district on Mathew Street. We prepared ourselves for the experience by listening the night before to the entire collected works of the Beatles while parked outside a Tesco in St. Helens (a suburb).

It did not start well; the Kensington approach consists of block-after-block of 
(tastefully) boarded-up houses, awaiting "regeneration"; Liverpool has a long 
history of economic ups and downs

2008 European Capital of Culture

The Walker Museum, where we spent much of Saturday morning

Hogarth's portrait of his friend, the actor David Garrick, as Richard III

There were plenty of famous paintings, including the obligatory Rembrandt 
self-portrait (he must have done thousands of them); "The Punishment of 
Lust," by an obscure 19th century Italian, caught my eye; it was the mountains, 
I guess, if not the levitation

"A horse is a horse, unless, of course..."

Among the interesting buildings downtown, on the harbor