Another EasyJet weekend, this time to Northern England - Manchester to be specific. We were looking forward to English Ales and the ability to communicate without asking if someone speaks English first. We arrived late Friday night, just in time to wander to a local a pub for a drink before heading back to our hotel for the night. Interesting note: after getting into bed there was a dripping from the ceiling, right by Kate's head. Somehow there was a leak and we were moved to another room. I guess it even rains indoors in Manchester!
We woke up to sun on Saturday and took the opportunity to explore the downtown. We started by walking past the town hall, but we arrived before it opened so we made a mental note to return later in the day. The building is built in the Gothic revival style and is considered to be one of the most important Victorian buildings in England. In preparations for the Chinese New Year there were lanterns hung around the square and around the rest of the city.
We next walked up towards to main square and around the main shopping center on the way to the cathedral, originally built in the late 1400's.
Now it was time to explore the Northern Quarter, home to restaurants, bars and boutiques where we worked up an appetite. For lunch we headed back towards the cathedral to eat at the Old Wellington, a half-timber public house built in 1552. A lunch of traditional English fare and beer didn't disappoint. However, the weather took a turn for the worse. Rain and wind, eek.
We braved the soggy weather and went to the John Rylands library, a half library/half museum containing old books and Papyrus 52, a piece of parchment believed to date from 100 - 150 AD (that's an old sheet of paper).
We then went back to the town hall, where we were able to go inside and have mid-afternoon tea at the restaurant in the main hall.
For dinner we found a Spanish tapas restaurant. We didn't have reservations and they said the wait could be over 30 minutes or longer but we could wait in the bar. After sitting down and looking at the wine menu they came back and seated us (I guess someone cancelled). Just our luck. Afterwards we walked back to the Northern Quarter where we found a cute restaurant/bar where we both had milkshakes for desert (Kate had Nutella and toasted marshmallow and Matt had a boozy hardshake of fudge with bourbon & Baileys. Yum!
On Sunday we work up to rain and decided to hit the Manchester Art Museum. Like most museums in Manchester it was free. It contained works from various British painters and was nice (but small). Next we took the tram to the Quays (pronounced "keys" in case you were wondering) to see The Lowry, a mixed use building on the old shipbuilding grounds that contains the artwork of LS Lowry, famous for his drawings of the industrial English North.
Our last stop in Manchester was the Oast House, a rustic chalet-like gastropub in a stand alone building in the middle of town. Good food to end our quick visit to Northwest England.
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