Up there in the North-West of England, where the river Mersey meets the sea, there lies the city of Liverpool. Once the major port of UK, bombed many times during the second world war, Liverpool has gone through a countless crisis, and has always been able to rise again, more beautiful than ever.
It counts almost 450,000 inhabitants only in the Metropolitan borough, but the number grows up to 820,000 if we consider the whole urban area, making it the ninth biggest city in the UK.
The official language is obviously English, although Liverpool is famous for its proper accent and dialect, called Scouse, which can make communication a bit difficult at the beginning, especially if you’re used to the Queen’s English. Anyway, a bit of practice and patience will be enough. Furthermore, despite any rumour about English people, Scousers, or officially Liverpudlians, are really friendly and talkative, so you should have no problem at all making new friends and practicing this peculiar language.
You can get here with all sorts of transport. Liverpool is served by its own airport, there’s Manchester airport at an hour distance, ferries to and from Ireland, as well as trains, coaches and motorways that connect the city to Scotland, Wales or almost any other location in England.
Currency here is the British Pound and the economy relies strongly on services (banks, call centres, public offices, etc.) tourism, which has increased significantly in the last few years, as well as entertainment. Mind that Liverpool is a really young city, with almost 40% of the population under 30. This implies that there’s a huge offer of pubs, clubs, restaurant of any kind and at reasonable prices. Also Liverpool hosts two impressive universities and welcomes thousands of students each year.Although the recent economic recovery, a few areas of town are listed among the poorest in UK, making them an undesirable place to live, especially for crime rates and social issues.
Climate is the ‘so called’ temperate, which means that temperature does not fall below zero even in winter. Unfortunately it doesn’t raise either above 20 Celsius on average in summer as well... so mild winter, but cool summer... and rain, as the number of rainy days is above the country average (282 vs. 154) In my experience, though, rain is almost always light and seldom lasts all day, as it’s windy and the weather can change swiftly.
