My husband and I will be attending a wedding outside of Manchester in July, 2010. This will be our first trip to England (hopefully not our last), and we're planning on padding out the trip by doing some fun things while we're there. The wedding will be on a Sunday, and I'm not sure how many other social functions there will be in the lead-up to the wedding, but we're planning on adding about five more days to the trip to handle some touring.
I'll be doing some generalized searching on the site, but I was wondering if anyone could provide me some opinions about things that you particularly like to see/do (other than shopping, I know about the shopping) in the Manchester area.
We're waffling about whether or not to wander up to Blackpool for a day ("we're goin' up th' 'Poole from down th' smoke below...") because it seems to me that it could very well be like Old Orchard Beach over in Maine, and I don't think we'd be very keen on that. Still, I'm willing to listen to what thoughts folks have.
Even just web page references to pursue would be helpful.
Thank you for your time.
I'm not sure about Old Orchard Beach but Blackpool is an experience you shouldn't miss. You might love it, you might hate it, but it's only thirteen quid on the train either way. There's the Beatles stuff in Liverpool, Chester's got a quaint historic centre, and you're not a million miles away from the Peak District or the Lake District either.
http://www.visitenglandsnorthwest.com/
It's not much like Old Orchard Beach after all, though there are plenty of places in England that are. It's probably more like Atlantic City, except a bit scaled down and with donkey rides.
After posting this I did some reading of reviews, and it strikes me that the pleasure beach might be a bit like Six Flags in Lake George (in that the quality of the rides are superior to what you'd find in OOB). It's intriguing, and I'm keeping it on the list for now. Beatles stuff hadn't occurred to me.
Had some conversation with my husband last night on the way home and we concluded maybe I should be looking at it a little differently, as in, "What can we do/see in the area that wouldn't have a similar experience in Vermont?". Things we're very especially interested in are castles (especially 13th century or earlier that were truly intended as fortifications, rather than the later, 16th century ones that were more 'cos "we've always built castles". ;D ). We're gonna give a go at Hadrian's wall, and I'm spending some time looking into other Roman stuff that might be around the area.
That being said, factory/farm tours are also interesting, perhaps museums about various historical periods. I am doing research here but any suggestions are helpful. I'll look into Beatles stuff right away! And thanks! :)
Hadrian's Wall is wonderful, but the best sections are closer to Newcastle than Manchester (between Sewingshields and Housesteads and reached by bus from either Carlisle or Newcastle). Chester has some good Roman stuff too, though if it's fortifications you're after you should be looking further west into North Wales. Conwy Castle in particular is fabulous.
I'm biased but if you're going to Hadrian's Wall I'd recommend the Northumberland coast too. Holy Island, Bamburgh...
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