Manchester

We went to Manchester for three days at the beginning of January.

First thing we saw as we left the train staiton, was Victory Over Blindness by Johanna Domke-Guyot, a statue remembering the returning blind veterans of WWI.

We settled in our hotel and then we went exploring. We started walking along Oxford Road which is in the University district.

A bar called Revolution

Manchester is full of beautiful buildings

Manchester Poetry Library, isn't that wonderful? Part of the University, of course.

Most buildings along this road are University buildings,

 with open areas for socialising in between

Contact, a multi-arts venue





We eventually arrived at the Whitworth, which was our destination during that walk.

That first evening we went to Canal Street - the centre of Manchester's gay village.

The Village became unified and came into full existence by issues regarding the gay community, particularly Section 28, a monstrous attack on civil liberties, which activism finally defeated.  Since then its fame has grown, and it's visited by lots of tourists. Being used as a set for some movies has brought it to a wider public view.

It was early evening when we visited and the streets and bars were quiet.

We did intend to go back after our evening meal but I found the place disappointing and we did not return. It's too commercialised, at every step we were hassled to go into a bar for a drink, or karaoke, or something else - it seemed to me it's become a tourist attraction, rather than a place for gay people to come together. Also, absolutely no sign of gay women - absolutely none. It's all men. Give me Brighton any day.

It snowed during the night and the next day we awoke to a white world.

We decided to go to Salford Museum and Art Gallery first thing so we took the bus.

I was intrigued by this structure in the park in front of the museum, so I asked at reception. It's apparently a Victorian air vent

for this building.

We enjoyed our Salford visit and then we took the bus back to the city centre and wandered around. By then it had started raining quite hard, and it rained for the rest of the day - such bad luck

The shopping centre was quite deserted, because of the cold and rain,  I presume

That evening, our last full day in Manchester, we went to China Town for our evening meal.

It's the second largest one in the UK and the third largest in Europe. It poured with rain the whole evening so I was in no mood to take photographs.

We chose Try Thai where we had a lovely meal.