Lowry's Manchester

Drinks with friends in any of a number of great little cafes and bars in the Gay Village along Canal street.

Grab a curry in Rusholme, home to every kind of Asian restaurant you could wish for.

Take a tram out to Old Trafford, Salford Quays or the new Lowry complex.

Visit Chinatown and see the famous imperial arch (although when I went it was under repair and covered in scaffolding!) Shopping and plenty of it, but where do you start?

Drinking real Aussie beer on a night out in the new aussie pub Walkbout Inn.

Quick Tips:

Don't take a train to Manchester (or anywhere) until at least summer 2001 - the state of the railway network in the UK is awful right now - it has the potential to really spoil a great weekend away!

Best Way To Get Around:

Once in Manchester, public transport is excellent. Buses and trams run frequently from the centre out to all attractions and suburban areas. Check out the Centreline City Centre bus service for FREE, 7 days a week - runs every ten minutes, call 0161 2287811.

Walking around the city centre is also a viable option, although it is a big place so take a break and have a coffee or a pint of beer at every available opportunity!

I haven''t checked out the YHA myself, but the pictures look good and the location is ideal. Visit their site at www.yha.org.uk for more details.

Rather too posh for the likes of me, Steven Saunders at The Lowry serves a pretty good Sunday Roast dinner, although it would have been good to get a steak knife with my roast beef.

The Lowry theme of fancy for fancy's sake does seem to carry through to the restaurant. Prices aren't too upmarket though and I highly recommend the bread-and-butter pudding!

The setting is relaxing, the restaurant has waterside views across the docks.

Typical prices are as follows: Lunch (2 courses, 12-3pm): £10

Pre-theatre Dinner (2 courses, 5-6.45pm): £12

What they say -

Walkabout Inns provide an authentic Australasian experience where others can only boast Australian memorabilia and warm Fosters on tap. Our great Australasian bar values sport, music, food, authentic products and exceptional service encompassed in a genuine relaxed atmosphere, which is reflective of Australasia as a whole.

My own humble opinion -

Definitely the closest thing you can get to authentic Australian pub in England. Lots of Aussie beer to choose from - I hadn't had a coldie for six months!

Great party music, sexy Aussie barmen (sexier after a few coldies), great atmosphere - perfect for our reunion with traveling buddies we met in Melbourne.

The Lowry is one of the latest attractions to hit Manchester. To get there take a tram from the city centre out to Salford Quays and walk down to the complex. There is lots of building work going on around here right now - the town is being tarted up for the Commonwealth Games.

The Lowry is a complex incorporating a theatre and an art gallery, including a large collection of work from L S Lowry! There are also some great photographic studies on display right now although exhibitions will be changing all the time.

The building itself is nothing if not modern, positively space age in fact. It looks a bit like something the Blue Peter team put together (Brits will know what I'm talking about) it looks as though its been covered in aluminum foil. The insides are something of a sensory experience, bright orange and purple walls and carpets and a strange obstacle course of stairs, sloped and curving walkways and escalators that give the visitor the impression of being a mouse in a maze.

Check it out online: http://www.thelowry.com

From designer chic to major chain stores, high street fashion, second hand or retro, Manchester is a shopping mecca. From the exclusive Triangle center in the heart of the city, to the Trafford Center on the outskirts, this city is built on a groundwork of superb quality shops. The centrally located Arnadale Centre, is another indoor shopping mall housing all the major retailers and also an indoor market. Adding to that are the small chains, and single store businesses that are resident in the city, offering the highest standards of products and services, and with a typically Mancunian touch. The Trafford Centre is situated on the outskirts of Manchester. Next to junctions 9 and 10 of the M60 Manchester Orbital Motorway, (formerly the M63) if you don't have a car its a bit of a hike, but not impossible by public transport. You can take a train of bus out to Stretford where a shuttle bus service will take you directly to The Trafford Centre. You might want to make a day of it! To see what's there check out the centre's website at http://www.traffordcentre.co.uk

All eyes will be on Manchester between 25 July - 4 August 2002 as the city hosts the 17th Commonwealth Games. Known as the friendly games it will attract more than 10,000 athletes, coaches, team officials & media from 72 nations and visitors from all over the world.

Athletes will have the chance to compete in world class venues including the City Of Manchester Stadium, currently being built in East Manchester and Manchester Swimming Pool Complex in Oxford Road, which was completed on schedule (!) in the autumn.

The Games will have additional significance as they take place in the Queens Golden Jubilee Year this time around.

On Saturday June 15th 1996 a 3,300lb (1500Kg) IRA bomb exploded in Manchester city centre. At least 80,000 lives were placed at risk by the bomb but prompt police action ensured there were no fatalities. The most serious injuries were caused by falling glass over 300 metres from the site of the explosion. The retail heart of the northwest was more or less ripped out together with a vast area of office space. Damage estimates amounted to £700m. About 200,000 sq ft of retailing and 300,000 sq ft of office space was destroyed. The bomb remains to this day the biggest ever detonated on the British mainland.

Within a very few weeks a Lord Mayor's fund had been set up to help stricken businesses and the decision had been made to turn the IRA's violence against itself and rebuild a city better than ever it was before the IRA left its calling card. Manchester Millennium Ltd was created and a competition held to draw up a masterplan for the city's redevelopment. The competition was won by an international group called EDAW but their plans were anchored locally by the acclaimed Manchester design practice Simpson Associates. The new Manchester features a new square, 240 trees, a park and even a new street.

The masterplan was all about being ambitious. The new Marks and Spencers has four floors each the size of a football pitch and includes a customer lounge "where shoppers can put up their feet, watch television and read a newspaper". It is the biggest Marks and Spencers in the world. Close by is the Royal Exchange which reopened in 1998 after more than £30m of rebuilding. The effective manner in which the vast former cotton trading hall was lightened and made fresh again went way beyond the need to simply reinstate. Every visitor to the city who takes a coffee in the Royal Exchange cafe is amazed by their surroundings.