A weekend in Manchester...Part 1

We've just spent the weekend in Manchester. The excuse was the National Winter Ales festival, being held in the city for the last time ahead of its 2014 move to Derby, and as we have a number of friends who were going to be working or simply drinking there, we were talked into going along.  Usual methods were employed to obtain the cheapest possible travel (train tickets at £52 return for both of us meant that it was both cheaper, AND quicker, than using the car would have been) and a budget Travelodge room was booked  - although admittedly it did rapidly become clear why it was quite SO cheap...more on that later. We set off from London on Friday night to head north - we'd checked ahead of time and established that the most budget-friendly way of getting from Manchester city centre to the Travelodge was to get a train directly from Piccadilly Station to the station just half a mile away from our destination. All good in theory, but we'd not bargained for having to do that walk in torrential sleet, with 2" of slippery, icy slush underfoot! We got there though, just before midnight, and as usual the helpful chap on reception was quite happy to provide additional pillows, tea & coffee supplies, and towels - whilst these places might be budget, if you ask politely we've never found it a problem to obtain the odds and ends to make the stay rather less basic!

Saturday morning dawned and the room was revealed in all its slightly tired decor...not, it must be said, the most appealing of establishments, but we were none too bothered as really we were only using it to sleep in. OK, so the switch didn't work properly on the kettle, meaning that it refused to turn itself off, but that was only a minor inconvenience. The inconvenience got a little more major, however, when I flipped the lightswitch and was greeted with a sort of "Wwwwoooff!" noise, and a rather bright blue flash....and all the lights went out. Apparently, we found afterwards, the lights had gone out in all the other rooms on the same circuit too, which must have been lovely for a few of the other guests!  Full credit to the staff, the situation was quickly resolved, power was restored, we were speedily moved to another room just along the corridor, and an e-voucher is being issued too, by way of an apology.

Anyway, having sorted that out we headed off into town to find breakfast and have a wander about the city before heading off to find the Beer festival. Neither of us know Manchester in the slightest, but what we DO know, however, is how to find a decent cafe for breakfast, so when we spotted this.... 

 ...we knew the search was over. not the most promising looking place,you might think - dodgy, hand painted signage, and slightly peeling paint. Look carefully though and you will see that, looking in through the window, the place was absolutely heavingly busy! We were not to be disappointed either - tea & coffee is served in mis-matched, multi-coloured mugs, and "swaps" on ingredients for the stomach-lining Full English we both went for were cheerfully agreed to. (I'm not a fan of either baked beans or fried eggs with a breakfast, and MrEH doesn't much like cooked tomatoes - both of us however LOVE mushrooms, so it was great to be able to swap things about). To perfectly underline the excellence of this place, we'd only been in there 10 minutes or so and a group of 5 friends of ours showed up - apparently it's THE breakfast place to visit in that part of the city!

Breakfasts consumed, our pals headed off to start their shift at the beer festival where they were working, and we went off for a wander about before going that way ourselves. one of the first places we stumbled upon was fab shop Magma - full of books, stationery and all manner of quirky stuff. I especially liked this notebook...

...but I could also have been distinctly tempted by "Bicycle Clips" (Page markers made from coloured wire in the shape of bikes, with a hand paper-clip shaped bit on the back), the "Great place Names" tea-towel (with the shape of the British Isles filled with all the best of the unusual, rude or bewildering place names these Islands have to offer) and the "Your life in Lists" book, designed to be just that, a notebook for all those lists some of us are constantly making! I could cheerfully have browsed in there for quite some time (and spent no small amount of money) but we thankfully escaped again before my bank balance took a battering. According to their Website they have stores in London, too, so I might well have to take a wander along there at some stage.

 Outside we found these rather unusual metal panels laid into the paving slabs. there were all sorts of different designs but these leaves were the one that photographed best. Manchester clearly loves its artwork - my favourite was this full-sized "L A Ink" inspired mural on the outside of a tattoo studio...

I love the contrast of the brightly painted bicycles against the black railings...

Fab, isn't it! The detail in the "Tattoo style" artwork is just incredible, and it magnificently brightens up what would otherwise be a dull corner. I love the street signage too - cleverly made up of individual tiles painted with the letters of the alphabet so that any name can be made up easily. There is something about these that reminds me of the signs for the Metro in Paris.

After that it was time to make our way to the beer festival where we passed a thoroughly pleasant day of catching up with fab friends, and drinking really excellent beer. All good!

Keep your eye out later in the week or possibly early next for more photos from wandering around Manchester this morning before heading off to the train.

Robyn