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Things to do on a day out in Manchester

If I were spending a few days in Manchester, I'd head for Chorlton at some point.

Pick up supplies from one of several good delis, head for the nature reserve and River Mersey for a picnic and stroll (weather pemitting!).

Then back to civilisation for a browse in King Bee Records.

Should be easy to get to from the city centre, by tram.
 
droodzilla said:
If I were spending a few days in Manchester, I'd head for Chorlton at some point.

Pick up supplies from one of several good delis, head for the nature reserve and River Mersey for a picnic and stroll (weather pemitting!).

Then back to civilisation for a browse in King Bee Records.

Should be easy to get to from the city centre, by tram.
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Or the 86 bus.
 
dohraeme said:
The museum I went to was the Manchester Museum Vivarium a few years ago. They have a great collection of stunning Poison Dart Frogs.

All 'audiophiles' should pay homage to The Bridgewater Hall, designed and built for optimal acoustics. Don't just isolate your HiFi, isolate your entire building!

"One of the most fascinating aspects of the Hall’s construction is that the entire structure floats free of the ground on almost three hundred, earthquake-proof isolation bearings or giant springs, so there is no rigid connection between the 22,500 ton building and its foundations. This ensures the Hall’s carefully designed acoustic is protected from all outside noise and vibration."
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The amusing thing about it of course is that there are multiple locations in which the sound could politely be described as shockingly bad. Indeed after 48 years of gigs the Bridgewater still gets my award for the worst sound at a gig I have heard anywhere in the world.

Get a good spot and it’s consistently okay but you can be one seat out and it’s ear bleedingly bad. It will stand as a great theory only…
 
Jubal said:
Quays. Not really I’d say, unless there’s something on at the Lowry? Mackie Mayor is good for an informal bite.
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The Imperial War Museum there is superb. An object lesson in how to serve-up a modern museum IMO. An impressive piece of architecture and decent enough cafe too.

tiggers said:
MOSI is great, but the power hall was closed for ages, not sure if it's open yet.
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No, and it won’t be for a long time yet due to major reconstruction work. The aviation hall is gone permanently too. It is a real shame, but a load of stuff just happened simultaneously that needed very expensive rethinking or fixing and it won’t be back properly on its feet for a couple of years yet. It will get there though, and the power hall will be better than ever. It is still home to the working SSEM/“Manchester Baby” replica, an item I know inside and out! Don’t get me wrong, it is still great, and well worth a visit, but it is currently operating at about half its real potential despite great staff and good intent. It needs support to help it through.

PS Here’s a pic of part of ‘The Baby’;

52518757367_579d23f210_b.jpg
 
Mike Hughes said:
The Royal Exchange is a magical theatre in the round with current management lacking in the imagination to put anything especially good or diverse on. During the day you often won’t be able to get in if there‘s a matinee on and I’d say it’s best to go only if you‘re going for a specific show.

The Village has been taken over by MCC and is a shadow of what it used to be and not really the safe space it used to be either.

Also worth noting that there is definitely nowhere called Rembrandt Street. The Rem is a pub and it’s not a family pub either.
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The Royal Exchange is still putting on excellent productions - we go to everything - but is strapped for cash.

Castlefield Viaduct is worth a visit and gives a very different view of the city.

Home is great for theatre, cinema and a lively, buzzing place to drop in for a drink or meal.

Bundobust for Indian street style food and beer.
 
Tony L said:
The Imperial War Museum there is superb. An object lesson in how to serve-up a modern museum IMO. An impressive piece of architecture and decent enough cafe too.
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I’ll vote for the books and the cafe. The museum is a mess. Lots of good things but lots of really not very good at all.
 
Mike Hughes said:
The amusing thing about it of course is that there are multiple locations in which the sound could politely be described as shockingly bad. Indeed after 48 years of gigs the Bridgewater still gets my award for the worst sound at a gig I have heard anywhere in the world.

Get a good spot and it’s consistently okay but you can be one seat out and it’s ear bleedingly bad. It will stand as a great theory only…
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IME The Bridgewater is good for orchestral and acoustic music, not so good for rock. But it has the advantage of being next to two of the best pubs in the city, The Peveril and The Briton's Protection.
 
vince rocker said:
The Royal Exchange is still putting on excellent productions - we go to everything - but is strapped for cash.

Castlefield Viaduct is worth a visit and gives a very different view of the city.

Home is great for theatre, cinema and a lively, buzzing place to drop in for a drink or meal.

Bundobust for Indian street style food and beer.
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I go to most things; have been heavily involved with accessibility issues and my offspring has been an ambassador for some time. There is undoubtedly good stuff but they’re their own worst enemy. The cast iron refusal to see it as a place for anything other then theatre is costing them heavily.

Yes to the viaduct. A good call.

I always forget Home but it’s a place I really like. The tendency to crank the music level up of an evening is a major irritant.

Bundobust was great in Piccadilly Gardens when they moved the seating to benches and dimmed the lights so that table after table has to have someone with a torch on their phone just to read the menu then they lost my vote. Utter stupidity.

Patels offy, which they ran during lockdown, was excellent.

I have seen decent sounding music of all sorts at the Bridgewater. I don’t think genre is the issue. It’s literally location.
 
Mike Hughes said:
The museum is a mess.
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I don’t agree, I think it is an amazing space with many routes and tricks up its sleeve. I love the way it is presented without victor’s moralising or obvious revisionism too, it is remarkably unbiased and intelligently presented and can be fully enjoyed as a pacifist or whatever belief. Another thing that impresses me is the way modern presentation technology is integrated. I’ve been there during schools presentations and they darken the huge main display area and project across multiple walls to generate a truly immersive three-dimensional narrative where stuff is happening all around the kids. That just knocked me out to be honest. Genuinely next-level stuff.

I’ve also really enjoyed their smaller exhibitions. I saw an amazing one from a Syrian photographer documenting Assad and Putin’s destruction of Aleppo. Amazing images, artefacts, narrative and additional context. Again just superbly balanced and allowing evidence to speak. Another was on the evolution of battlefield medical technology across the decades. Always high quality and well curated stuff.

It is a very good place. I’ve never been to the one in That London so have no idea how it compared. To be honest I only went into the Manchester one as I’d cycled there for a look at the Quays, fancied some food, and thought the architecture was interesting. I wasn’t expecting to be so impressed by a ‘war museum’ given my views on state violence and authoritarianism!
 
Tony L said:
I don’t agree, I think it is an amazing space with many routes and tricks up its sleeve. I love the way it is presented without victor’s moralising or obvious revisionism too, it is remarkably unbiased and intelligently presented and can be fully enjoyed as a pacifist or whatever belief. Another thing that impresses me is the way modern presentation technology is integrated. I’ve been there during schools presentations and they darken the huge main display area and project across multiple walls to generate a truly immersive three-dimensional narrative where stuff is happening all around the kids. That just knocked me out to be honest. Genuinely next-level stuff.

I’ve also really enjoyed their smaller exhibitions. I saw an amazing one from a Syrian photographer documenting Assad and Putin’s destruction of Aleppo. Amazing images, artefacts, narrative and additional context. Again just superbly balanced and allowing evidence to speak. Another was on the evolution of battlefield medical technology across the decades.

It is a very good place. I’ve never been to the one in That London so have no idea how it compared. To be honest I only went into the Manchester one as I’d cycled there for a look at the Quays, fancied some food, and thought the architecture was interesting. I wasn’t expecting to be so impressed by a ‘war museum’ given my views on state violence and authoritarianism!
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I agree, I have no real interest in the subject of the museum and only went because some friends from outside of the city wanted to go, but I came away deeply impressed.
 
A bit of a hike out from the centre, but the Whitworth Art Gallery is great. A really nice space with interesting exhibitions and a great cafe. It has been expanded substantially in recent years and is really cool. I need to get out there again myself sometime.
 
Tony L said:
I don’t agree, I think it is an amazing space with many routes and tricks up its sleeve. I love the way it is presented without victor’s moralising or obvious revisionism too, it is remarkably unbiased and intelligently presented and can be fully enjoyed as a pacifist or whatever belief. Another thing that impresses me is the way modern presentation technology is integrated. I’ve been there during schools presentations and they darken the huge main display area and project across multiple walls to generate a truly immersive three-dimensional narrative where stuff is happening all around the kids. That just knocked me out to be honest. Genuinely next-level stuff.

I’ve also really enjoyed their smaller exhibitions. I saw an amazing one from a Syrian photographer documenting Assad and Putin’s destruction of Aleppo. Amazing images, artefacts, narrative and additional context. Again just superbly balanced and allowing evidence to speak. Another was on the evolution of battlefield medical technology across the decades. Always high quality and well curated stuff.

It is a very good place. I’ve never been to the one in That London so have no idea how it compared. To be honest I only went into the Manchester one as I’d cycled there for a look at the Quays, fancied some food, and thought the architecture was interesting. I wasn’t expecting to be so impressed by a ‘war museum’ given my views on state violence and authoritarianism!
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I absolutely agree re: presentation in terms of moralising and revisionism.

The dimming remains a huge issue. They have gained a reputation for being very bad at warning about what happens and absolutely refuse to think through the consequences for all users.

Your “next level” is actually the reason multiple schools vow to never return. Kids with autism; noise sensitivity; sensory issues etc. find themselves plunged into darkness and with stuff suddenly going off all around them. There is huge irony in the ability of that to traumatise people and I remain astonished that they refuse to contemplate the impact on adults too and especially adults who have been involved in warfare. My grandfather refused to visit despite some of his own possessions (a minute trench diary from WW1 belonging to his father for example) being donated there. That refusal was after one of his fellow veterans was blue lighted from there having suddenly found himself with air raid sirens going off etc. Beyond stupid frankly.

The other aspect of it, which I find staggering, is that the stories recreated during these events are often related via text which is 7/8 of the way up a huge wall and on an ever changing projected background. It might be “next level”. It’s also unreadable and just staggeringly inept. Kids can’t read it. Adults can’t read it. Brilliant. Way to go.

Better than this is the fact that the whole place dims. Superb. You're trying to exit an accessible toilet and you’re plunged into darkness. You’re in a stairwell and then you’re in darkness.

The IWM itself bears no comparison. There is a lot more then and it’s a lot more traditionally presented.
 
Museum of Science & Industry

I had a pleasant couple of days just wandering around the centre. Hadn’t been back since graduation in ‘85 (Born there in ‘54, but ‘Ampshire bred since ‘57). This was following a family funeral in Macclesfield. I stayed in the Novotel in Portland Street.

Negative points - the Plaza Cafe on Upper Brook Street (home of the infamous “half chicken biryani”) is long gone, and the FTH (Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Barclay James harvest, Focus, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, and many many others!) is now a hotel.

and…joke coming….

If you need uplifting….visit the Etihad Stadium
if you prefer depression…visit Old Trafford
🤣
 
Some things I don’t think have been mentioned:

Chetham’s Library the site is fascinating and amazingly well preserved medieval buildings

You could go and look at the trophies at the Etihad, the closest a Spurs fan is likely to get to them ;)

Manchester Museum on Oxford Rd has just reopened, it’s supposed to be great, but the Museum I most often recommend is the People’s Museum. Fascinating.

What date are you up, I can see if there’s anything free on at Chethams or the RNCM if you want a bit of culture.

The Imperial War Museum and the Lowry Gallery are the only reason to visit the quays at Salford.

The Marble Arch or the Lass O’ Gowrie are two pubs you should try to visit.

The food at Gordon Ramsey’s Lucky Cat is supposed to be amazing, and there’s a reasonably priced lunch menu. It’s in a fabulously designed Luyten’s building.

I’ll think of some more things for sure.
 
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