This is Liverpool’s year. The city that sent us the Beatles in 1964 is having a year-long celebration as the 2008 European Capital of Culture, and it’s well worth a stop if you are touring England anytime during the next 12 months.

The bash began over the weekend when ex-Beatle Ringo Starr returned home as part of a huge outdoor concert. Two songs were premiered, one by Starr (“Liverpool 8”) and one by a Liverpool band, the Wombats. Both are to be released on Monday (January 14). Paul McCartney will head a concert in Liverpool this summer.

Anyone over the age of 50 remembers the Beatles coming to America in February 1964. As much as 45 percent of the country spent a Sunday evening sitting in front of their television sets, watching the old Ed Sullivan Show to get a first look at a group of shaggy musicians who were about to change the pop music world. That show still is one of the highest-rated non-sports programs of all time.

The Beatles were the first of a wave of rock groups who brought a new sound across the Atlantic from a tough, gritty, blue-collar industrial port city on England’s west coast.

Like its neighbor Manchester, Liverpool has spent years and pumped millions into a regeneration of buildings, streets, riverfronts and cultural attractions. The investment shows, with just enough gentrification to make downtown fun to explore. You might arrive by train, 38 minutes from Manchester or a couple of hours as a possible day trip from London, or fly into the John Lennon Airport.

Penny Lane and Strawberry Field

In addition to museums, art galleries and exhibitions in appreciation of the city’s long maritime history, you’ll find plenty of Beatles memories, shops, displays and tours, including, of course, the real Penny Lane and Strawberry Field.

I topped off a day of walking by taking a boat ride accompanied by a song, "Ferry Cross the Mersey," which plays as the local ferry leaves the city docks and heads toward the suburbs across the Mersey River. The Mersey ferry returns to the Liverpool dock in less than an hour. Cost: 2.2 pounds, about $4.50 for the round trip.

The Mersey,  which flows into the Atlantic, has played a major role in the lives of many future Americans, including my great, great, great, great grandfather who floated out of Liverpool toward the United States in 1792. In the past 300 years, an estimated 9 million men, women and children left Liverpool in the waves of migration from England, Scotland and Wales, toward the New World.

BTW, yes, the ferry song was sung by Gerry & the Pacemakers, who later recorded a follow-up, "Mersey Lullaby."

For a free visitors guide to Liverpool.
For more on the 2008 celebration.

Molyneaux is editor of TravelMavens.net. CLICK for articles on cruising, Florida, Europe and adventure.