Manchester

Introduction

Manchester sits on the banks of the Merrimack River in southern New Hampshire, the state's most populous city and one of two seats of Hillsborough County alongside Nashua. It anchors a metropolitan area of roughly 423,000 people near the northern edge of the Northeast megalopolis, which puts it within easy reach of the larger cities of the Northeast corridor.

Use the city as a base for exploring the Merrimack Valley and the surrounding county, with Nashua and the rest of Hillsborough County close at hand.

Before you go

Manchester sits in the North West of England, between Liverpool and Leeds, and has a young, vibrant character with something happening much of the time. Its influence reaches well beyond the city boundaries into neighbouring Salford and Trafford and across the wider region. Locals are famously friendly and talk to strangers, so don't be surprised if asking for directions turns into a conversation — and they respond well to positive comments about their city. The adjective for the city and its people is Mancunian, or simply Manc. Note that the city has a stereotype of being very wet, but it actually sees less rain than the UK average.

Before you arrive, it helps to know that central Manchester is a major student city, home to two of the UK's largest universities plus the Royal Northern College of Music, with a further university in Salford close to the centre. Eating and drinking in the centre and South Manchester can be very inexpensive thanks to competition between establishments geared towards students. If you'd rather avoid student crowds, many places are not frequented by students, though you may pay a little extra; a few venues operate a strictly 21+ policy, so carry identification. In the student areas of Fallowfield and Withington, some venues run a student-only policy and may ask for a student card. For football, tickets to Premier League games can be hard for tourists to obtain while cup matches are easier, and all tickets are sold in advance with no admission on the day; stadium tours at both clubs run daily. Lancashire cricket matches at Old Trafford are almost always available on a walk-up basis, with a discount for buying in advance. For up-to-date lists of places to eat and sleep, the Manchester Visitor Information Centre is at Manchester Central Library on St Peters Square, close to the town hall.

Getting there

Manchester Airport (MAN) sits south of the city and handles flights from North America, the Gulf and the Far East as well as European routes. Most flights use Terminal 1, holiday charters usually leave from T2, and T3 serves smaller aircraft on domestic and near-European hops. The quickest way into the centre is by train: frequent services reach Manchester Piccadilly and Oxford Road in about 20 minutes, and many continue direct to other cities, including via Warrington to Liverpool, via Preston and Carlisle to Edinburgh and Glasgow, and via Sheffield and Doncaster to Cleethorpes. Trains thin out after midnight, when Bus 43 runs through the night to Piccadilly via the university corridor and Oxford Road. A tram also links the airport with the southern suburbs. Liverpool John Lennon Airport, mostly served by budget carriers, is reached from Manchester's central coach station by a coach taking about 45 minutes, or by frequent trains between Liverpool South Parkway and Manchester Oxford Road.

Two major stations serve the centre: Piccadilly in the south, the main destination for trains from around the UK such as London, Birmingham and Leeds, and Victoria in the north, with trains from Bradford and local services from elsewhere in North West England. Trains from Liverpool, Leeds, York, Sheffield and Nottingham often also stop at Oxford Road, which is convenient for the university; Deansgate and Salford Central see mainly local services. Avanti West Coast runs between Piccadilly and London Euston on the West Coast Mainline in a little over two hours. Long-distance coaches are generally the most reasonably priced option: National Express services use Chorlton Street Coach Station between Chinatown and The Village, while Flixbus and Megabus use Shudehill Interchange north of the centre. By car, the M60 orbital ring road is reached from the M62, the M6, the M61 and the M56; if you get lost in the centre, follow signs for the inner ring road. City-centre parking can be expensive, so look for open-air car parks, and note that double yellow lines mean no parking at any time.

Getting around

Central Manchester is compact and easy to explore on foot, with pedestrianised stretches such as Thomas Street and Market Street letting you take in the architecture as you go. Pedestrian-level street maps are mounted on main streets including Deansgate, Oxford Road and Market Street, usually set into advertising hoardings, with your position marked by a dark circle; they cover the centre down to the university district and central Salford up to Salford University. You can pick up a similar map at the tourist information centre, or fall back on an A-Z map book from a newsagent or bookshop.

Public transport across Greater Manchester is coordinated by Transport for Greater Manchester under the Bee Network branding, and its multimodal journey planner and smartphone app (Android and iPhone) help you plan trips and buy some ticket types. Metrolink trams run through the centre via St Peters Square, Deansgate–Castlefield and Cornbrook before fanning out to destinations including Salford Quays and Media City, the Trafford Centre, East Didsbury, Oldham, Rochdale, Wythenshawe and the airport; off-peak fares are cheapest after 9:30AM. Buses are branded yellow under the Bee Network, with Piccadilly Gardens generally serving the south along with Wigan and Bolton, and Shudehill serving the north; a travelshop at Shudehill Interchange stocks timetables and maps. The Oxford Road and Wilmslow Road corridor is the most-served bus route in Europe, linking the centre with the universities and Rusholme, and the number 43 runs around the clock to the airport. Two free buses start from Piccadilly station and loop around the south and west and the north of the centre respectively. Cycling is well provided for, with segregated lanes such as the one on Deansgate and Starling Bikes docking stations across the centre and the Oxford Road corridor, though take care to cross tram tracks as close to perpendicular as possible. Bringing a car into the centre means severe traffic queues and expensive parking, so it is better to use park and ride sites and continue by public transport.

Where to stay

Most of Manchester's accommodation clusters in the east of the city centre, within easy reach of the InterCity Piccadilly Station, and the range runs from five-star establishments through bed and breakfasts to youth hostels and serviced apartments. If you're unsure where to begin, the tourist office in Piccadilly Gardens can point you in the right direction. Despite its industrial heritage, the city holds a number of very fine hotels, among them the grand old Midland Hotel, where Rolls met Royce, and the Hilton Manchester Deansgate, housed in the 47-storey Beetham Tower — both in the Castlefield–Petersfield area. Several hotels also serve Manchester Airport, giving you easy access to both the airport and the city centre.

On smaller budgets, you'll find plenty of smaller chain hotels throughout the city, including the ubiquitous Premier Inn and others of its ilk, offering clean, pleasant rooms at lower tariffs. Self-catering apartments have become a popular alternative to traditional hotel stays, with thousands available across the city centre and outskirts, sleeping up to eight people for stays of anything from one night to a year — though you can expect noisy neighbours at weekends, and the local press has reported cases of guests being charged for breakages they weren't responsible for, so take care of the place you're staying. Business travellers have various serviced apartment options around the city, including La Reserve Aparthotel on Ducie Street.

Food & drink

Manchester's eating scene is genuinely cosmopolitan, and you can track down just about any international cuisine alongside British cooking if you look hard enough. The suburbs reward exploration for small independent bistros: West Didsbury and Chorlton are noted for their many excellent eateries, and the village of Ramsbottom, north of Bury, is spoken of as the place to eat. Well-established UK chains such as Café Rouge, Pizza Express and Nando's are found in the city centre and out of town. For something cheap and late, Oxford Road, Fallowfield and Rusholme are lined with kebab and pizza shops; Rusholme's Curry Mile is dense with Indian restaurants, where the competition keeps standards high, and the cheapest long-established curry cafés hide in the back streets of the Northern Quarter and Central Deansgate.

For a British dining experience, try Sam's Chop House on Chapel Walks or Sinclair's Oyster Bar at Cathedral Gates. Chinatown holds a huge range of Cantonese restaurants, with all-you-can-eat buffets and the Great Wall on Faulkner Street for authentic, reasonably priced one-bowl dishes; Salford is another good bet for Chinese food. Indian options range from Akbar's on Liverpool Road to the two EastZEast branches, classy but not overpriced, and Zouk Tea Bar & Grill off Oxford Road; further out, Moon in Withington and Third Eye in Didsbury are excellent, and Chorlton's Barlow Moor Road has Coriander, Azid Manzil and Asian Fusion. Japanese choices include conveyor-belt YO! Sushi and Sapporo Teppanyaki. For Spanish, seek out El Rincón de Rafa behind Deansgate or Evuna on Deansgate itself. Splurge in the top hotels, at the long-established Market Restaurant in the Northern Quarter, or over afternoon tea at Harvey Nichols. Pâtisserie Valérie on Deansgate and Leckenby's on King Street cover tearooms, and from November a Christmas Market stretches from the Town Hall towards St Ann's Square with international food stalls.

When to go

Manchester has a temperate maritime climate that rarely gets too warm or too cold, so there is no period you need to avoid for extreme weather. Summer brings warm days and mild nights, with daylight stretching from early morning until well into the evening; occasional hotter spells can make the days and nights feel considerably warmer. When the weather is fine, the city puts on a good show, with plenty of al fresco drinking and eating.

Spring is one of the times when fine weather makes the city show its best, and the mild conditions mean you won't have to plan around extreme weather. Winter is relatively mild too, so there is never a season to avoid visiting; just expect short daylight, with sunrise not until almost 8:30AM and darkness falling just after 3:45PM.

Three days in Manchester

Day one: Start your visit in Manchester at the Manchester Visitor Information Centre, where you can get your bearings and plan the rest of your stay. From there, walk to St Peters Square and step into Manchester Central Library, a landmark worth seeing in its own right. Round off the day with a stroll along the Merrimack River, which runs through the city.

Day two: Head to the Royal Northern College to take in some music, then spend the afternoon exploring South Manchester. Wander through Fallowfield and Withington to get a feel for the neighbourhoods, and stop for something to eat along the way.

Day three: Give the day over to Manchester's sporting side with a visit to Old Trafford. If you have time before you leave, return to the city centre for a last look around St Peters Square, and note that Manchester Airport makes for a straightforward departure.