I’m ashamed to admit that as of just over a month ago, I’d never been to Manchester. All of these exotic climes I’d visited, and yet I’d not been to one of the UK’s most important cities – a city, I was to discover, which deserved my full attention: from the Lowry to the National Football Museum, and great shopping and restaurants thrown in too, it offers a whole array of delights for the tourist.
When I think about the fact that
my friend Tom has been living in Manchester for the past 6 years and my hubby had
been to visit him 3 times prior to my visit, it’s really difficult to
understand why I’d not been; every time Tom came back to Essex, he’d tell me
about this new bar he’d been to, or this great shop he’d found, or even just
about an excellent meal he’d had on the curry mile – and yet I’d still not been
to visit. So it was decided that 2012
would be the year that Essex-girl-and-hubby would be let loose in Manchester:
and what a gem of a city we discovered!
Season’s greetings!
Once it was decided that we were
going, we timed our visit to coincide with the Manchester Christmas Markets;
having once lived in Vienna, I am a sucker for a Christmas Market. This does also mean that I have high
expectations of what a Christmas Market should be like: Winter Wonderland in
Hyde Park is not for me, it’s not authentic enough. Manchester, however, did not disappoint:
street after street of tempting stalls selling a beautiful variety of food and
gifts from Germany, France and Holland.
It was all so authentic! And
what’s more, I even managed to find a gluten free Lancashire sausage and bun –
what more could this Essex girl want from a Christmas Market?! The Glühwein was hot and delicious, and, most
importantly for me, served in an authenticity-inducing mug rather than a polystyrene
cup – fuelled up on warm alcohol and tasty treats from the market, even the
rain couldn’t dampen our spirits as the lights twinkled away amongst the joviality
surrounding the town hall.
Above: Tom and I enjoying a Gluehwein in the Market, and below, the mugs!
From Christmas Markets to
Culture
But it wasn’t just the Christmas
Markets we’d gone for: I also had my heart set on taking in The Lowry. I wasn’t disappointed – what a wonderful
space to display such fantastic works of art!
As well as the striking Lowrys – which aren’t to everyone’s taste, but
certainly suited mine – we were lucky enough to visit during a Peter Blake
exhibition. Colour and music abound, and
the added touch of the 50’s jukebox and interactive social media board blended
musicality and modernity seamlessly.
As Tom lives in the Salford Quays, we took the
opportunity to walk up to the recently constructed Media City UK, the new home
of the BBC, too, and then visited the Imperial War Museum North: an incredibly
interesting museum, housed in an equally interesting Daniel Libeskind designed
building. I was so impressed by all of
the regeneration which has taken place in the Quays - the architecture is truly
stunning.
Some of the stunning architecture in the Salford Quays
We headed back into town that night, as that first sausage in the
Christmas Market had set a precedent.
Tom remembered a restaurant he’d been to where he thought he remembered
them serving gluten free pizzas – the wonderful ‘Dough’ in the Northern
Quarter. He had remembered correctly –
the only thing on the menu which I couldn’t eat was the Caesar salad! It was over that gluten free pizza that
talked turned to Mancunian stereotypes.
Liam and Noel Gallagher have got a lot to answer for. Tom advised that the city is actually an
incredibly large melting pot of people and cultures - rather than one stereotype
- all of which seem to get along. This
was later proved by our visit to the geek-chic TV21 bar – complete with scary
alien at the entrance, where else in Britain would you find a sci-fi bar
alongside quirky restaurants?!
Pizza!
Shopping, shopping, shopping!
After all that culture, it was time for some shopping on our final day
(well, you can take the girl out of Essex, but you can’t take the Essex out of
the girl!). However, this wasn’t really
shopping as I knew it; none of the generic shops of our Southern Lakesides or
Westfields: this was shopping in the eccentric Northern Quarter. What a treasure trove! Tom took us to the likes of Afflecks Palace
and the Oxfam Originals shop for a mooch around. What surprised me was how friendly everyone
was; of course, they were probably trying to make a sale, but I couldn’t put my
finger on what was different about the atmosphere in Manchester as opposed to
London.
