Where to stay in Liverpool: the best neighbourhoods and hotels

This is the Liverpool on the postcards. The Royal Liver Building and its neighbours stand over the Pier Head, the Museum of Liverpool sits beside them, and a short stroll south the Royal Albert Dock gathers Tate Liverpool, The Beatles Story and a ring of restaurants around its still water. Beyond that, Kings Dock holds the arena and convention centre.

Pullman Liverpool is right at Kings Dock, handy for concerts. Crowne Plaza Liverpool City Centre overlooks the river near the Pier Head, and Staybridge Suites has studios and one-bedroom suites with kitchens in the Albert Dock area. For something different, the Titanic Hotel fills a vast converted warehouse at Stanley Dock, north of the centre, with a spa and a bar and grill.

Liverpool ONE is the open-air shopping district that stitched the city centre back to its waterfront. It is busy, modern and extremely convenient: the Albert Dock is five minutes one way, Bold Street's cafés five minutes the other, and there are enough restaurants to feed a fussy family for a week.

Hilton Liverpool City Centre sits within the development and has a family programme with a kids' welcome and children's breakfast. School Lane Hotel, from the people behind Hope Street Hotel, has 55 light-filled rooms with original sash windows and three-metre ceilings. 62 Castle Street is a 20-room boutique steps from the shops, and Cove on Paradise Street has one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments with on-site parking.

Mathew Street is where the Beatles played the Cavern Club, and the lanes around it still thump with tribute bands most nights. A block away the mood changes completely: Castle Street and Dale Street are lined with the Victorian banks and insurance palaces of a city that once ran half the world's shipping. Many of them are now hotels.

Hard Days Night Hotel is the obvious pick for fans, a boutique hotel in the heart of the 'Beatles Quarter'. The Municipal Hotel & Spa has 179 rooms and a pool inside one of the city's great civic landmarks. DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel & Spa is in a Grade II-listed building five minutes from Liverpool ONE, and Heywood House, built on the site of Liverpool's first bank, has 35 individually designed rooms near James Street station.

Ropewalks takes its name from the long, straight streets where rope was once made for sailing ships. Today Bold Street, Seel Street and Concert Square are the city's going-out heartland: independent restaurants, record-playing bars and clubs. Just south, the Baltic Triangle has turned its warehouses into street-food halls, breweries and creative studios. Great fun; not for early nights.

The Halyard, a lifestyle hotel with 133 rooms, is the smartest address in Ropewalks. Lock and Key is a boutique hotel four minutes on foot from Concert Square, and Staycity's aparthotel is two minutes from Liverpool ONE. The Baltic Hotel puts you in the Triangle itself, within a 15-minute walk of the Albert Dock.

Up the hill from the centre, the streets widen and the noise drops. Hope Street runs between the vast Anglican cathedral and the modernist Catholic one, past the Philharmonic Hall and the Everyman Theatre, with terraces of Georgian townhouses on either side. It is the most elegant corner of Liverpool and the best place for a long dinner.

Hope Street Hotel is the star: an independent boutique with 149 rooms, a spa and two restaurants, including the acclaimed London Carriage Works. Novotel Liverpool Paddington Village, in the neighbouring Knowledge Quarter, has 16 floors of city views. On a tight budget, the Cocoon at the International Inn is a hostel a short walk from the Everyman and Liverpool Cathedral.

Arrive by train and Liverpool makes its entrance straight away: St George's Hall, a colossal neoclassical temple, faces Lime Street station, with the Walker Art Gallery, the World Museum and the Empire Theatre lined up beside it. The shops are a five-minute walk downhill.

Radisson RED fills a grand 19th-century building beside the station, a stone's throw from St George's Hall. Holiday Inn Liverpool City Centre is directly across from the platforms, with car parking next door. The Shankly Hotel, 100 metres from the Royal Court Theatre, is themed around Bill Shankly, the great Liverpool manager, and has its own parking.

Southport is the genteel end of the Merseyside coast: Lord Street, a wide boulevard of Victorian arcades and canopies, a long pier, the Marine Lake and a broad sandy beach. Golfers know it for Royal Birkdale, one of several famous links courses along this shore.

The Lord Street Hotel has 23 rooms and a Champagne bar on the boulevard itself. The Vincent is the stylish choice, with a full spa, and the Waterfront Hotel sits on the Marine Lake beside the theatre. The Braemar is a bed and breakfast within a five-minute walk of the pier. Just down the coast, Formby Hall is a golf resort with a spa and indoor pool.