Manchester!

February 27, 2011, 10:11 AM
Filed under: United Kingdom | Tags: art gallery, chinatown, John Rylands Library, Manchester, United

On an early Thursday morning we hopped on the bus to Manchester. It’s takes slightly over an hour to get there from Leeds and offers some beautiful views on the typically English landscape. Once we had arrived, our first stop was the Visitor Information Centre where we got some city maps and other brochures.

After leaving the Visitor Information Centre we found ourselves in Chinatown. There is a big Chinese-looking gate (apparently they celebrated Chinese New Year there) and Chinese paper lanterns were dangling above our heads. And of course there were a lot of Asian shops and restaurants.

Next, we headed towards the Art Gallery which displays historic as well as modern pieces of art. I found the historic paintings especially interesting, since they gave me an impression of life in former times. There were paintings from different eras in British history, also showing everyday scenes of life back then.

After a coffee and tea break we went to see my personal highlight of the trip: the John Rylands Library, part of the University of Manchester. The library has been built in the 1890’s in Gothic style and holds a lot of very old collections of books. Walking there felt like a little time travel and it is actually possible to work and read in those old rooms. It is not allowed to take pictures there, but for those of you who are interested, google it or check out their website.

We proceeded to the more modern part of Manchester, walking through the shopping streets and grabbing a bite to eat. It was already afternoon and our next stop would be the Manchester United stadium, which is a little outside of the city centre. We got on a bus and arrived at the stadium, only to see that the shutters were going down. The employee at the entrance kindly told us that the museum (and thus the entrance to the stadium) was closing now, but that the megastore would still be open for an hour. Oh no! We went to the megastore anyways, some of us wanted to buy souvenirs for relatives who were Man United fans.

Back in the city centre we had one hour before our bus back to Leeds departed. We spent it in a pub nearby the bus station and had a toast on the nice day.

We are now planning a trip to Liverpool, home to the Beatles. And as soon as I get to shoot some nice pictures of Leeds with good weather, I will post them here as well. So long!