Manchester

Our plane arrived in Manchester pretty early this morning. The hotel was downtown, so we hopped on a train from the airport to the downtown station and walked to the hotel. It was less than a mile away, but we had no maps and very little idea where we were going. We were each carrying two heavy carry-on bags, and we kept looking in the wrong direction to dodge traffic before crossing the street. But within half an hour we found the hotel and checked in.

We left the hotel a little after noon and headed to the city square, which was only about a block from where we were staying. There was an open-top bus tour of the city, so we got tickets. Unfortunately, June in Albuquerque isn’t the same as June in Manchester, and we weren’t completely prepared for the weather. It was cool and drizzly when we were walking, but once the bus started moving that translated to freezing cold and pouring rain. It was a nice tour; we drove past the the clubs where Stone Roses and New Order started out, the Manchester United football stadium, and a bleedin' gigantic shopping mall south of the city called the Trafford Centre. We managed to stay on for about the first half of the 90-minute tour, and then we jumped off at the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry, toured that for a while and walked home.

Our hotel was nice, and the location was phenomenal. It seemed like we were a 10-minute walk to everything we wanted to see, which was way more than we had time for. The Manchester Art Gallery was less than a block from our hotel, so we saw that on the way back. Growing up in Utah, I’m used to the term “art gallery” referring to a place with some rather nice paintings by local artists and maybe touring exhibits by people I’ve never heard of. I was completely unprepared for this place. They not only had originals by people whose names I recognize, but a few paintings I actually own prints of. There were works by Gainsborough, Constable, Leighton, Waterhouse, Rodin, and too many others for me to remember.

Manchester Chinatown was across the street from our hotel. We stopped at one of the plethora of restaurants up there. It wasn’t bad, but it’s really difficult to order water in England. I love water and drink it in vast quantities. But if you order water in most English restaurants, they’ll bring you bottled water at about $3 per 8 oz glass. Some places say on the menu that they will not serve tap water, and the places that do serve it require you to specify that you don’t want bottled water. But at least we’re not in Germany where all the water is carbonated.

As we were walking home we passed the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester’s main classical concert venue, which again was about 2 blocks from our hotel. I looked up their schedule and they had a concert going on that night featuring their in-house orchestra, the Hallé Orchestra, and a visiting choir. We decided to make an evening of it.

Another culture-shock moment came when we showed up to buy tickets. In southern Utah, most classical concerts are sparsely attended, and the only way anyone at all will show up is if the admission is no more than a pittance. This was just a run-of-the-mill mid-season concert, so I didn’t expect it to be too heavily attended. The venue was a gorgeous, moderately large five-tier hall, and it was practically sold out when we got there. And these were no bargain tickets either. Some of the nicer seats weren’t significantly cheaper than what we’ve paid to see The Who next week. We didn’t get anything that good, but went for some mid-range tickets against a side wall. The concert was magnificent. I guess it shows what can happen when you get some public support for the arts.

That’s it for today. Tomorrow we go to Liverpool.