5 Best Sights in Liverpool, Manchester, Liverpool, and the Peak District

In the same building as the Merseyside Maritime Museum, this museum's four dynamic galleries recount the history of transatlantic slavery and trace its significance in contemporary society. "Life in West Africa" reproduces a Nigerian Igbo compound; life aboard slave ships bound for the Americas is revealed in the "Enslavement and the Middle Passage" section; and "Legacy" examines the effect of the African diaspora on contemporary society.

This wonderful five-floor museum captures the triumphs and tragedies of Liverpool's seafaring history. In addition to presenting exhibits of maritime paintings, models, ceramics, and ships in bottles, it brings to life the ill-fated stories of the Titanic and Lusitania; the Battle of the Atlantic; and the city's role during World War II. Seized, the gallery for the Border Force National Museum, explores the heroes and villains of the world of smuggling, together with the story of mass emigration from the port in the 19th century, while the Life on Board gallery looks at everyone from merchant sailors to leisure cruise-liner passengers.

Clad in Jura stone and shaped like a ship, with a spectacular spiral staircase running from the atrium to each floor, this ambitious waterfront museum tells the story of the city from its earliest settlement in the Neolithic Age. Highlights include an extraordinary 3-D map with different perspectives of the city as you move around it, an engrossing film about soccer culture, and an interactive timeline peeling away layers of Liverpool's history. There's a children's gallery and family museum trails, too.

Winston Churchill said that the threat of a U-boat attack from the Atlantic was his greatest fear during World War II. At this evocative war museum, you can explore the warren of rooms under the city streets that served the top-secret "Western Approaches Command HQ" from 1941 to 1945. The lofty Operations Room, full of the state-of-the-art technology of the time, is especially interesting.

Travel from the prehistoric to the space age through the stunning displays in these state-of-the-art galleries. Ethnology, the natural and physical sciences, and archaeology all get their due over five floors. Highlights include a collection of Egyptian mummies and a beautiful assemblage of Japanese arms and armory in the World Cultures Gallery. There's plenty to keep kids amused, like fish and other sea creatures in the Aquarium, monster bugs in the Bug House, and life-size casts of prehistoric monsters in the Dinosaurs and Natural World Gallery, plus a planetarium and a busy program of events and activities.