Where: Manchester, England
When: October 19-21, 2012
With: Emma and Gemma
Year 2 of my time here in London is starting off with some of the deeper cuts of England. A "Side B" of things to do, if you will. Now that I've got my lovely friends here in England, they want to start showing me around their home towns. And I'm clearly willing to oblige.
The first city on the list was Manchester, shown to me by Emma, who was born and raised here. This northern city is about a 3-4 hour drive from London. While it's an industrial city, sports are what currently come to mind for most, with both the Man U and Man City football (soccer) clubs.
To kick off our tour, we caught the bus from Emma's home and from a front-row seat on the top level of a double decker bus, we watched as the suburbs melted away to become the city of Manchester.
The city itself had a great vibe. Lots of people outside walking around and enjoying the several shopping areas and open green spaces. Street artists performed everywhere and the sound of their music was all around.
One of the main attractions of the city is its cathedral. Smaller compared to some of the ones we've seen in the south, but still very beautiful.
Our night out consisted of hopping from bar to bar, ordering cocktails, and dancing our hearts out in secluded parts of the bar where creepy guys couldn't reach us. It was a great evening, and we had a blast singing along to old favorite songs and experiencing all the bars the city had to offer.
The next morning, we headed out first thing. We had brunch in a cute, little village and then drove into the countryside to experience Alderley Edge. This is a very fancy, ritzy town that I had never heard of. To give me some context of the type of people that lived here, Emma showed me a youtube clip of a show MTV did on the kids that from this town. It's basically like Laguna Beach, English-style.
Regardless of it's reputation, the park in this town is beautiful. Alderley Edge gets its name from the edge of cliffs overlooking a giant valley. We spent about an hour hiking on the trails, getting lost, and eventually enjoying the views to the valley.
We called it a day after about an hour and began our journey home to England, trying to avoid motorway and stick to countryside for as long as possible.
Had an amazing road trip with these girls and glad we planned a few more while we were there. Hopefully another one in the near future!
When: October 19-21, 2012
With: Emma and Gemma
Year 2 of my time here in London is starting off with some of the deeper cuts of England. A "Side B" of things to do, if you will. Now that I've got my lovely friends here in England, they want to start showing me around their home towns. And I'm clearly willing to oblige.
The first city on the list was Manchester, shown to me by Emma, who was born and raised here. This northern city is about a 3-4 hour drive from London. While it's an industrial city, sports are what currently come to mind for most, with both the Man U and Man City football (soccer) clubs.
To kick off our tour, we caught the bus from Emma's home and from a front-row seat on the top level of a double decker bus, we watched as the suburbs melted away to become the city of Manchester.
The city itself had a great vibe. Lots of people outside walking around and enjoying the several shopping areas and open green spaces. Street artists performed everywhere and the sound of their music was all around.
One of the main attractions of the city is its cathedral. Smaller compared to some of the ones we've seen in the south, but still very beautiful.
Some of the classic tudor architecture in the older parts of the city.
Pedestrian walkways, an eclectic mix of buildings and green parks, that was Manchester. We took advantage of them all with lots of shopping and outdoor time. We walked a giant loop around the whole city and saw every neighborhood.
In an open area called Castlefield, we found old Roman ruins that had been built here nearly two thousand years ago, as well as a reconstructed castle (hence the name). Gemma loved this site.
In Castlefield, we found a flock of sheep. We played around on them until we started getting strange looks from passers-bys.
Old and new: a lopsided hotel with the old canal-keeper's home.
There were also many canals through the northern part of the city, which were beautiful.
At the end of the day, we headed home to prepare for a proper night out in Manchester as the city is known for its excellent night life. After glamming up a bit, we fulfilled an Emma-tradition: photos in the foyer before heading out.
Our night out consisted of hopping from bar to bar, ordering cocktails, and dancing our hearts out in secluded parts of the bar where creepy guys couldn't reach us. It was a great evening, and we had a blast singing along to old favorite songs and experiencing all the bars the city had to offer.
The next morning, we headed out first thing. We had brunch in a cute, little village and then drove into the countryside to experience Alderley Edge. This is a very fancy, ritzy town that I had never heard of. To give me some context of the type of people that lived here, Emma showed me a youtube clip of a show MTV did on the kids that from this town. It's basically like Laguna Beach, English-style.
Regardless of it's reputation, the park in this town is beautiful. Alderley Edge gets its name from the edge of cliffs overlooking a giant valley. We spent about an hour hiking on the trails, getting lost, and eventually enjoying the views to the valley.
We called it a day after about an hour and began our journey home to England, trying to avoid motorway and stick to countryside for as long as possible.
One of the final highlights to our trip was after 3 hours in the car back to London, when rain was pouring and there was a backup of traffic. The weekly 8pm radio program started on BBC1 that took requests from its listeners. Emma had the random/brilliant idea that we call and request something. Gemma went ahead and did such a fabulous job of talking it up with the radio station, that we ended up getting airtime for our request! Sadly, the DJ talked for most of our on-air time, but it was exciting nonetheless. To hear our bit, scroll to about 13 minutes in.
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