Can 10m people be wrong? That is the number expected to visit Liverpool this year as the UK city celebrates being European Capital of Culture. With 6m tourists by July, the port has become the most visited city in Britain after London and Edinburgh. By the end of this year, millions will have come for the first time.

The visitors might have arrived for concerts by Paul McCartney or Simon Rattle, paintings by Gustav Klimt or Ben Johnson, or even to watch Fernando Torres on the pitch or Cilla Black in pantomime. But they will have also have discovered a waterfront designated a world heritage site by the United Nations, Europe’s largest new shopping and leisure district, the biggest collection of museums in any European non-capital city, and one of Britain’s warmest welcomes. “Livercool” is back.