Accommodation in Liverpool for the Savvy Traveller

This boutique hotel is well placed for enjoying two of Liverpool’s big draws: the nightlife and the famous Mersey waterfront. The latter is just a five-minute stroll away and the streets immediately surrounding the hotel are home to a wide variety of bars and restaurants. Among them, linked via a door in reception, is the Alchemist, where the bartenders know how to whisk up a mean cocktail; you can even order food from its menu to be sent up to your room.

Non-locals are often surprised to discover that Liverpool has an attractive Georgian Quarter, filled with handsome townhouses and excellent independent bars and restaurants. Here, on Hope Street, roughly midway between the city’s two cathedrals and just over the road from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, you’ll find this chic boutique hotel, with bright, light bedrooms, its own hot-ticket dining spot, the London Carriage Works, and all the oak floors, Egyptian-cotton bed linen and REN bath goodies you could wish for.

Back in the 19th century, the RopeWalks area was filled with people manufacturing ropes for the ships that filled Liverpool’s docks. Today, the narrow streets of this trendy district are filled with indie bars, shops, restaurants and galleries, including FACT, one of the country’s leading media arts centres. In amongst all the fun you’ll find the Resident, converted from an old cork warehouse and now home to smartly furnished apartments with self-catering facilities and helpful staff.

If you’re in town for an event at the Exhibition Centre or Liverpool Arena, the Pullman is a no-brainer, offering smart contemporary rooms right on the doorstep. The bars, restaurants and museums of Albert Dock are also close to hand and the Trans Pennine Trail runs right past the door, so if you’re up for a hike you can follow it along the waterfront and inland to leafy Sefton Park, with its Victorian bandstand, boating lake and Palm House.

This Beatles-themed hotel is exactly where it should be: slap bang in the heart of the Cavern Quarter, just round the corner from the Cavern Club, the Magical Beatles Museum and assorted Beatles-themed bars. The hotel itself is filled with specially commissioned artworks of the Fab Four and you can have fun seeking out Beatles-related statues in the surrounding area, including John Lennon leaning on a wall on Mathew Street and Eleanor Rigby sitting on a bench on Stanley Street.

The location of Arthouse is ideal if you’re here to party – it’s in the RopeWalks district, surrounded by endless bars and restaurants. “A hotel like no other” is the promise, and it definitely delivers, with a full-on movie theme running throughout: enter along a yellow brick road, eat in the Mulholland Singing Diner with waiters belting out show tunes and sleep in rooms that take their design cues from Mary Poppins and other classic films.

Pretty much all the main attractions are within easy reach of this city-centre hotel, converted from a former bank building. Within a 10- to 15-minute walk you can be admiring the outstanding collection of the Walker Art Gallery, immersing yourself in all things Beatles in the Cavern Quarter or wandering along the waterfront to the Albert Dock. A recent makeover has injected new cool into the bar/restaurant, with a long white bar and abundant greenery.

The Titanic Hotel makes up for its slightly out-of-centre location with an historic setting on one side of Stanley Dock, facing the vast Tobacco Warehouse on the other side. Converted from a 19th-century warehouse, this four-star hotel has huge, loft apartment-style bedrooms, an impressive basement spa, a buzzy grill restaurant and a cosy bar. Trivia time: despite the hotel’s name, the RMS Titanic never actually visited Liverpool, but was registered here by the White Star Line, who had their HQ on James Street. The nearby Merseyside Maritime Museum tells the tale.