This year’s Eurovision’s host city was the perfect choice

"Do you think that Zelenskyy lad will make an appearance?" is one local topic of discussion. Most reckon the Ukraine president is more likely to show up on screen on final night, in his trademark green military fatigues, than in person. Either way, he'll be in for a warm Liverpudlian welcome.

EuroFest whetted appetites, starting in Liverpool on May 1, featuring collaborations between UK and Ukrainian artists, notably The Blue And Yellow Submarine Parade, billed as an “outdoor, underwater sea disco” with hundreds of performers and a huge glitterball jellyfish shimmying through Liverpool.

I've been visiting this vibrant, raffish port city in England's north-west for almost 40 years. And it still stirs the imagination, like it did when I was a kid, forever spinning my parents' Fab Four LPs.

Nowadays, being based in Britain, I usually come by train — it's just over two hours from London, 40 minutes from Manchester — and stepping out of Lime Street station, I'm greeted with that familiar breeze, whipping in from the River Mersey, spiked with the chatter of raucous seabirds (reminding me of another Liverpool band, A Flock of Seagulls, and their 1982 hit, I Ran).

Buses and taxis whoosh past, some taking tourists to Penny Lane, Strawberry Field and other old haunts of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.

Walking through Liverpool's always-lively city centre, past toe-tapping pubs and hip food halls, sleek malls and shops that have seen better days, you'll soon hear a busker or three. Sometimes they'll be playing their own stuff. Often it'll be Hey Jude, She Loves You, Come Together.

"It's safe to say that Liverpool wouldn't be Liverpool without the music — and music wouldn't be music without Liverpool," says Steve Rotheram, the city region's Labour mayor, who's hoping Eurovision will help turbo-charge a local economy that has, like the rest of the UK's, been battered by the pandemic and Brexit.

It's also the first time "The People's Republic of Liverpool" is hosting.

Buoyed by its stint as 2008 European Capital of Culture, it certainly has a renewed confidence as a visitor destination, with a growing hit-list of attractions, and a hospitality scene that blends characterful old-stagers (some with sticky dance floors) with on-trend crowd-pullers.

Whether you're here for Eurovision, were you lucky enough to score tickets (good luck finding a hotel that won't break the bank), or, more realistically, planning a trip later, this Merseyside city is food for the soul, with a patchwork of strollable enclaves sure to get you humming your favourite songs.

Here, then, is our insider guide to the best the city has to offer.

Absolutely Fab Four: Pier Head

"Do you want me to take your photo?" Every day, this phrase is uttered, in various languages, accents and gestures, on Liverpool's magnificent waterfront. Especially by the larger-than-life bronze statue of The Beatles, where people eagerly gather with cameras, smartphones and smiles.

It'll be packed around here during the Eurovision festivities. While the ticketed action, including the grand final, will take place at the 11,000-capacity M&S Bank Arena by the Ferris wheel on King's Dock, a free fan zone, the Eurovision Village, will set up big screens and stages for live music at Pier Head.

It's the promenade where the Fab Four look out towards the river and the famous Mersey ferries shuffle to and from the Wirral, a peninsula hugging the opposite bank (and the birthplace of bands like The Coral and OMD).

If you’re not visiting Liverpool on a cruise — more than 100 vessels are set to call here in 2023 — a ferry ride is a must. The first service, back in AD1150, saw monks rowing people across, and probably saying a prayer or two.

The current, engine-powered fleet (one sporting a technicolour paint job) plays Ferry Cross the Mersey, the 1964 tune by Merseybeat band Gerry and the Pacemakers.

Admiring Liverpool's skyline from the river, the so-called "Three Graces" will grab your attention. These early 20th-century beauties shot up on Pier Head when Liverpool was one of the British Empire's richest seaports.

Touted as Europe's first skyscraper, the Royal Liver Building is the most iconic, capped by two green-copper Liver birds, the city's mythical guardians.

At its new attraction, I enjoy views from the 15th-floor terrace before ducking into one of the clock towers for an audio-visual spectacle reliving Liverpool’s up-and-down fortunes, including its World War II pummelling by the German Luftwaffe.

Next door, in the palazzo-esque Cunard Building, I find myself under the spotlights, my head swaying to classic rock and pop numbers at the British Music Experience.

High-tech exhibits, storied instruments and memorabilia decorate the former first-class passenger lounge, including outfits by David Bowie, Dusty Springfield, Freddie Mercury and The Spice Girls (Mel C, "Sporty Spice", is a Merseysider).

Wannabe musicians love playing the drums and guitars in the Gibson Interactive Studio, and there's a dance booth with a virtual teacher.

You’ll find more immersive fun — and absorbing antiques — at the admission-free Museum of Liverpool, set in a quirky contemporary building opposite the neo-baroque Port of Liverpool Building, the third “Grace”. See the National Museums Liverpool.

Galleries celebrate Liverpool's feisty independent streak, sporting obsessions (including its two football clubs, Liverpool and Everton), and popularity with TV and movie makers. They're won over by the city's grandiose streetscapes, Brutalist blocks, sprawling docks and sculpture-studded beaches.

Scenes for The Crown, The Batman and Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them saw Liverpool double as London, Gotham and New York. And it played itself in the Beatles-inspired rom-com, Yesterday.

Mersey dash: Royal Albert Dock

I have warm, hazy memories of my first Liverpool trip, one summer's day in 1984. We came for the International Garden Festival, a horticultural extravaganza opened by Queen Elizabeth II.

Times had been so hard for Liverpool, plagued by high unemployment and post-industrial blight, that some in Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government suggested abandoning it to a fate of "managed decline".

Thankfully, another direction — one steered by culture and tourism — was decided. While the festival was fleeting, a second 1980s regeneration project became the poster boy of Liverpool's resurgence.

Expect the TV cameras and drones to gleefully swoop over Royal Albert Dock throughout Eurovision.

Its restored red-brick Victorian warehouses and even redder cast-iron pillars frame a boat-dotted basin that once welcomed ocean-going ships loaded with brandy, cotton, ivory, silk, sugar and tobacco. The dock now houses residential and serviced apartments, and increasingly good bars and eateries.

Share Neapolitan pizzas at Rudy’s, Lunyalita’s Catalan tapas, Madre’s tacos and tequila cocktails, or pies, pints, pittas and porn-star martinis at The One O’Clock Gun.

As well as The Beatles Story, a multi-media museum charting the Fab Four’s rise and legacy, you’ll find free-to-enter dock draws like Tate Liverpool, whose permanent collection features Joan Miro, Piet Mondrian and Anish Kapoor.

The Tate also participates in the Liverpool Biennial, the UK's largest contemporary visual arts festival, which takes over indoor and outdoor spaces across the city.

Cape Town-based curator Khanyisile Mbongwa helms this year’s event (June 10-September 17), titled “uMoya: The Sacred Return of Lost Things” with international artists delving into Liverpool’s history and temperament.

I always learn something new at Albert Dock’s Merseyside Maritime Museum, which includes the International Slavery Museum. Discover how the city profited from the transatlantic slave trade, and sent off an estimated nine million emigrants to the New World between 1830 and 1930.

Before steamships slashed sailing times, the voyage to North America took just over a month; to Australia, it could be four.

Many headed Down Under, dreaming of Gold Rush riches, on vessels operated by the Liverpool-based White Star Line, whose most infamous ship was the Titanic, Belfast-built but carrying Liverpool's name on its stern.

MMM has a Titanic gallery, while a Titanic Hotel and New York-loft style apartments fill a hulking brick warehouse on Stanley Dock, another chunk of gentrifying Liverpool waterfront.

Other neighbouring redevelopments - such as Everton's half-finished new riverside stadium - have proved more controversial, leading UNESCO to strip Liverpool of its World Heritage status in 2021.

Hall of fame: St George's Quarter

We’re staying at the new Radisson RED. Adjoining Lime Street station, it’s a revived Victorian-era railway hotel, resembling an oversized French renaissance chateau, topped by spires and turrets.

Bespoke pieces by Wirral-based Indigo Art toast Liverpool across the 210 rooms and public spaces, which marry jazzed-up period features with cool modern design.

The lobby's grand sandstone staircase sweeps above a vintage arcade machine, Beatles paraphernalia and a 1960s-style scooter and sidecar, which evokes the Mod subculture and bands like The Who and The Jam.

A red submarine sits by Stoke, the hotel's grill restaurant, where an acoustic guitarist strums tunes like Help! as we savour spicy crispy squid, tender rack of lamb and zesty yuzu tart.

I sup a craft ale from Love Lane Brewery of the Baltic Triangle, a trendy inner-city Liverpool district with vintage markets, street art and buzzy venues like Camp and Furnace, which has singalong brunches and Eurovision club nights (campandfurnace.com).

Our Superior Room looks out at St George’s Hall, a mammoth mid-19th century landmark. Its former lives as a concert venue, law courts and prison cells shape an immersive digital experience called “The History Whisperer”.

Each December, Christmas markets, plying bratwursts and gluhwein, pop up by the hall and its neighbouring neoclassical lovelies: the Central Library, World Museum and Walker Art Gallery. See St Georges Quarter.

From May 20, 2023, the latter has a retrospective on Tom Wood, an Irish artist, known as "photie man", who's been capturing people and places on Merseyside for 50 years. More than half of Liverpool's half-a-million residents claim Irish ancestry.

Daily ferries still sail to Dublin and Belfast, and Irish visitors add to the craic in Liverpool's bars, pubs and clubs, many fluttering green, gold and white flags.

Party town: Ropewalks

Like the Cavern Quarter, a cobbled district stuffed with Beatles-inspired addresses, you're never far from a party in Ropewalks.

This warehouse-rich district once crafted sailors’ ropes and now throngs into the early hours with bacchanalian retreats and cosmopolitan eateries, from the industrial-chic kitchens of Duke Street Market to the Mediterranean restaurants of Bold Street, a sloping drag that also has independent vinyl, fashion and coffee stores.

Named after an old Liverpool folk song, covered by the Fab Four, Maggie May's serves traditional staples like lobscouse (a meat and potato stew apparently introduced by 19th century Scandinavian seafarers).

Embracing Eurovision, with themed karaoke, bingo and quiz nights, will be The Shipping Forecast, while nearby Alma de Cuba is a groovy spot in a candle-lit converted church with gospel brunches, rum cocktails and samba dancers.

You may also hear tunes drifting from St Luke's, the Bombed Out Church. Blitzed by Luftwaffe air raids, it is reborn, staging gigs, open-air theatre, wine festivals and other life-affirming events (slboc.com).

Heaven sent: The Georgian Quarter

Peeking over the city from a ridge, this amble-worthy district has elegant old merchants' townhouses with brightly-painted doors, modern British bistros and jazz bars, and two striking cathedrals: a modernist Catholic one nicknamed "Paddy's Wigwam" and a neo-Gothic Anglican one of Europe's sixth largest cathedral.

They’re at opposite ends of Hope Street, where a young Merseysider, Daniel “007″ Craig, would watch plays with his mother at the Everyman, a theatre whose 2011 revamp was part-funded with European Union grants.

At the art deco Philharmonic Hall, affectionately known as “the Phil”, the resident orchestra performs Eurovision hits on May 12.

This venue sits across Hope Street from its sister pub and dining rooms, where I've savoured a few pies and pints in its gorgeous marble, mosaic and mahogany-clad interior. In 2018, Paul McCartney played an impromptu gig here for James Corden's Carpool Karaoke.

Further along Hope Street, Macca co-founded the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts (Lipa) in the old school that he and George Harrison attended (John Lennon went to the arts college next door).

It’s the meeting point for Liverpool’s newest walking tours, which are led by Merseyside pop-music icons who’ll share personal anecdotes and hidden locations, finishing with a bevvy in a pub.

Guides include Brian Nash, lead guitarist of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, best known for Relax, Two Tribes and The Power of Love, and Peter Hooton and Keith Mullin of The Farm, whose unifying, anti-war 1990 anthem All Together Now remains as pertinent and rousing as ever as we approach Eurovision 2023.

Steve McKenna was a guest of Visit Liverpool and Radisson RED.