“The society which has abolished every kind of adventure makes its own abolition the only possible adventure.” Paris, May 1968


Friday 27 January 2012

Liverpool Adelphi discovered.

Over the past year or so I have become a bit of a connoisseur of the "budget short break" and especially the once grand luxury hotels that are now forced to offer the likes of me a couple of cheap nights in the faded grandeur of what was once the very height of bourgeois opulence. I shouldn't take any credit for finding these deals, it's all down to "her indoors" who can sniff out a bargain like no one else I have ever met. Each to their own of course. My contribution is the socio/economic and cultural analysis of the project. Anyway, the fact is we have just returned from a couple of nights at the Liverpool Adelphi. The scale and splendour of the place is quite over the top. A grand hall based on the main lounge of the Titanic, acres of gilt and marble, I can't imagine what this place must have been like in the heyday of the Transatlantic Liners. The Adelphi was the favourite stop over place for politicians, eastern potentates and the stars of stage, screen and radio; Roy Rogers is reputed to have ridden Trigger up the grand staircase. Now coach parties of moaning coffin dodgers are the staple punters. A room the size of most flats and overlooking the bustle of Lime Street with an excellent breakfast and evening meal thrown in came to the princely sum of twenty five quid a night each. Plenty of dosh left over to explore those wonderful pubs.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This old place was quite louche in the 70s.Of an afternoon my old man used take a few strokes in the hotel pool on the his way to the She Club. A lot of shady deals took place at the Adelphi. If you can, imagine low rent Las Vegas..