Quote:
Originally Posted by monkeytennis
This post is spot on. Only just seen it. I used to have that ignorant opinion of Liverpool (dump, thieves etc) but having been there, it's a really nice place. It's better than Manchester.
Your point about Newcastle is interesting cos that's always been my view of the North East.
Re: Misconceptions, I know that feel. Once you've got it, it's nearly impossible to change.
|
Sorry man, I don't come on here often, so only just seen this.
Yeah Liverpool is genuinely a beautiful city and in terms of niceness, absolutely knocks Manchester out of the park. The only thing Manchester really has over us is the gig scene there, but that's just down to logistics cos it's bigger and therefore it has more people, more venues, more promoters. Nothing else.
I suppose you're in a similar boat with being from Birmingham, hardly a city with a good rep but it's such a beautiful place and has some of the most imposing, wonderful architecture I've seen. Before a couple of years ago, I'd only ever been to Birmingham to change at New Street on my way further down south or through on the coach and I thought the place was a dump, cos the coach station is in Digbeth (iirc?) and it's just not a nice area at all, but every city has that and once you get past that (and the absolute eyesore that is the Bullring, let's be honest) it's SO lovely. Went to the Institute to see Melvins a few years ago and my friend who's from Stoke and knows Birmingham fairly well took me around parts of the city centre I had never seen before and I was genuinely dumbfounded at how lovely it was.
I'm generally not a fan of huge city centres like London and Manchester and to some degree, Leeds, but Birmingham does it well. I'm just used to Liverpool being small and compact and having such a well thought out layout that other city centres just do my head in.
Birmingham is probably the only city further south to Liverpool that I actually like, though. Well Sheffield too, which I discovered recently is EVER SO SLIGHTLY further south to Liverpool and that blew my head off.
EDIT - with regards to the North East, I've been to Newcastle, Sunderland, Hartlepool and Middlesbrough. All of them are pretty awful bar Newcastle, I've been to NCL a few times for nights out but never really seen the city. Went for a day out there last year and scaled the whole city centre and drove around some of the suburbs as a friend and I were actually considering moving there for a bit of a change as we'd both enjoyed it on previous visits. It's very very similar to Liverpool in lots of ways, we kept noticing similarities and then we'd follow it up with "..but it's just not as good as *whatever we were comparing it to in Liverpool*" - like their Quayside is such a poor man's version of The Albert Dock, their Chinese arch on Chinatown is tiny compared to ours (ours was crafted by 20 craftsmen who were flown over from Shanghai just to build it and is the biggest outside of China, second only to one in Washington) and the Tyne river looks pathetic compared to the Mersey. Even down to stuff like one of their main shopping streets, Northumberland Street, is very similar to Church Street in Liverpool but it's just nowhere near as nice, aesthetically.
One thing I will say though, is Grey Street in Newcastle is genuinely one of the most beautiful streets I've ever seen, even if the buildings along there are a bit repetitive and there is no diversity, it's still gorgeous.
Must say, though, very few streets can rival Castle Street here in Liverpool.