Day Seven: Glasgow to Liverpool

Today, we weren’t only the last ones on the bus, but we were late too. Anna hurried us onto the coach as we began the journey out of Scotland and back into England. But not before visiting Greta Green, where under 21’s ran to marry in the 17^th century after the British marriage laws changed. Half a mile away from the border of England, it is also where, as we later realized, Lydia and Wickham are heading to elope after their stint in Brighton. But our couple to be married was Adwin and Irene, with Geordie as the father with the shotgun and Anna as the sobbing mother. The rest of the group was the wedding party, and so our group photo is immortalized to be sent to us back home.

We had a look at the museum, then one last look at the different types of tartan, hairy cows and grabbed one last Irn Bru before hopping on the coach and making our way out of Scotland. We passed the fringes of Lake Country before having a service stop, and then arriving in Liverpool that afternoon. We said goodbye to Ben who was leaving the tour early and had a quick look in the Beatles Story shop before Jacqui hopped on the coach to give us our driven tour of Liverpool, Beatles style.

We passed the Liverpool One complex, not far from where we were staying, Cavern Club,

Penny Lane

, Strawberry Field and John Lennon’s house while being treated to trivia and the music of the Beatles. We even learnt about the conflict between the Liverpool (red) and Everton (blue) football clubs, thus making the garbage bins purple. We had drinks in our room after the tour, making Cam, Ash, James and Anna (not the tour manager) try some of the Viennese rocket fuel. It’s still going strong, and they thought so too. We walked to a pub and had a last meal before James also had to leave the tour early as well. Then it was off to the Cavern Club for the rest of us to enjoy our last night.

The atmosphere was amazing, with a John Lennon and Paul McCartney tribute band filling the cavern with the music like the 296 shows the Beatles once played there. The sound engineer looked at me like I was an idiot when I requested the Ringo Star song “Yellow Submarine”, but they got another tribute group up and five of them played the song together, as had never been done before, dedicating it to Contiki. It was a pretty amazing night as we saw the Beatles faces on the wall and stood in their red phone booth. But eventually it was time to return to the hotel, so passing the John Lennon memorial in Liverpool One we headed back to the hotel and crashed exhausted into our beds. It was a good way to finish the tour.