Sleeping with Ringo: A room at Liverpool's Hard Day's Night Hotel.
It's been a long and winding road to completion but a new $40 million Beatles-themed hotel in the heart of Liverpool, England — the birthplace of all four members of the seminal group — finally welcomed its first guests on Feb. 1.
The Hard Days Night Hotel, www.harddaysnighthotel.com, is just yards from the site of the original Cavern Club, where the Beatles played many times during their early years. There are 110 fashionably appointed bedrooms and two suites. A suit of armor stands in the McCartney Suite — a none-too-subtle reminder of Sir Paul's 1997 knighthood — while the Lennon Suite features a white piano, reminiscent of the grand featured in the famous film of John Lennon singing Imagine.
Aspects of the band's career are incorporated throughout the four-star property, which is housed in the former Central Buildings — a handsome Victorian edifice dating back to 1884. The tablature of the opening chord of the 1964 hit A Hard Day's Night forms the hotel's logo. Every room features an artwork by Shannon — the U.S. artist famed among Beatles fans for her prolific depictions of the Fab Four — and every Beatles movie is available for viewing in the bedrooms at any time of day or night. The Beatles' history is told in images set around a magnificent 19th century granite-pillared staircase.
The hotel offers two bars — Bar Four and the Indian-themed Hari's Bar — as well as a brasserie and a restaurant serving modern British cuisine. Known as Blakes, it is named in honor of the pop artist Sir Peter Blake, who designed the iconic Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album sleeve. And while your money can't buy you love, it can buy you a wedding in the hotel's Two of Us chapel, which gets its name — as any Beatles fan can tell you — from the opening track on the album Let It Be.