Like in 2023, last year, I headed to Cardiff, Wales, for the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. It’s the perfect combination of holiday spirit and people I do not know!

The AirBnB rents three upstairs bedrooms, as separate units. To get to the kitchen, you need to go outside and walk to the back of the house. Your fingerprint is used to unlock both doors. It’s a nice break from restaurants and laundromats.

At the end of my 30 days, I hopped on a train to Liverpool. My first attempt at doing that happened in November of 1984. I overslept and missed the train. This time, I made the train. But, it came to a full stop, an hour outside of the city. There was a gas leak, on the tracks up ahead.

I called an Uber, from the train station, and made my way to the hotel. The place looked really modern, from both the outside and the lobby area. My room was a good size and had almost everything I needed. There’s a bar next door and the sounds go on all night. It’s great being in a big city again.

The hotel is a five minute walk from the center of One Liverpool, an open-air space with well known shops, restaurants, and a movie theater. It’s also a short walk to the Cavern Club, The Beatles Story Museum and the Magical Mystery Tour bus.

The bus goes to the former homes of the Fab Four. It also drives down Penny Lane and stops at Strawberry Fields. Our tour guide grew up on the same street as Paul McCartney and he was in a Beatles cover band for twenty years.

The tour ends near the Cavern Club, birthplace of the Beatles. Your tour bus pass gets you free entry into the club and a free gift (a postcard). I can’t believe that it took me forty years to finally catch that train from London to Liverpool!

Still, I am so glad that I finally did it. I’ll head back there, in three years, once the International Slavery Museum reopens. I was a day late and a dollar short, before it closed for remodeling. XOXO —GGT