Liverpool is an entirely walkable city that’s best travelled on foot, allowing explorers to peek down cobbled back alleys in search of street art and encounter independent cafés on every second corner. If you’re staying in the city centre, make sure to investigate the Ropewalks district. Back in the 18th century, the area’s main thoroughfare, Bold Street, was used by sailors to measure out rope for ships. Today, the road is packed with vintage digs, independent shops and some excellent cafés. Starting at what Scousers call the Bombed Out Church (the burnt out shell of St Luke’s that regularly hosts farmers’ markets and yoga sessions), take a stroll past vinyl stores and artisan bakeries, stopping for refreshments wherever takes your fancy.

In the south of the city, the leafy enclave of Allerton offers parks aplenty for strolling and quieter neighbouring streets to potter through. Circumnavigate the kidney-shaped Sefton Park, which is ringed by a crown of majestic red-brick merchant mansions, before diving into the foliage in search of the elegant glass palm house at its centre. For a coffee break, sidle down Lark Lane, just off the park, to browse vintage shops, graze on tapas or, on the fourth Saturday of every month, stock up at the bustling farmers’ market.

Putting Beatles, Bunnymen and Frankie Goes to Hollywood aside, Liverpool’s diverse music culture extends its tendrils into all corners of the city, and nowhere more so than in the wedge of old warehouses trapped between the Mersey and Liverpool’s pocket-sized Chinatown. At night, the Baltic Triangle hums, thronged with wide-eyed nocturnals seeking intricate baselines and space to dance. Venues like 24 Kitchen Street and Camp and Furnace are bringing DJs, poets and performance artists together under one roof, providing thoughtful events worth a late-night adventure.

A Merseyrail ride away, Crosby’s stretching sands, backdropped by the Mersey’s industrial paraphernalia on one side and the distant Welsh hills on the other, are where Liverpudlians head to stretch their legs. Don’t miss the 100 lonesome figures that scatter the shoreline: the life-size cast-iron bodies of Antony Gormley’s eery ‘Another Place’ installation. If you’re keen to walk, try tracing the coastline up to Formby, where mountainous dunes hide an airy forest of pinewood home to endangered red squirrels.