Liverpool was back in the news this week.

The new Museum of Liverpool, the £72m development on the city’s World Heritage waterfront, opened its doors.

Given that summer holidays had just started, I took my girls to have a look around.

I thought the section on Liverpool writers was a bit sparse but the music section did cover Erics, Probe …

… and not just the Beatles.

Maya loved dressing up as a Chinese princess in the more compelling ground-floor section, which explores Liverpool’s place in the world as a key trading city.

And Olivia liked the soft-plat area as part of a good little gallery for children, a decent learning resource based around the alphabet.

The museum was packed on Friday and the cafe heaving at lunchtime, so we escaped to one of my favourite Liverpool boozers, The Baltic Fleet.

It was nearly empty, has some great ales on tap from the Wapping microbrewery in the basement and plates of Scouse for lunch.

Not bad for a ten-minute walk from the coach-party frenzy of the Albert Dock.

We didn’t stick around for the evening son-et-lumiere show but, if you’re in Liverpool this autumn, there’s more On the Waterfront during September.

We did pop into the exhibition at the Royal Liver Buildings to mark the centenary of Liverpool’s most famous landmark building.

My grandfather worked here in the Fifties for the shipping company, Palm Line Ltd.

The business is long since defunct but I’d love to hear from anyone who has memorabilia, documents or memories of the trading route from Liverpool to West Africa.

There will be tours of Royal Liver Building in September as part of the Heritage Open Days weekend.

I’ll be going back to explore in more detail and try to find the offices where Harry Millington, my granddad once worked.

More from Visit Liverpool.