Manchester City Will Surprise You

Manchester Town Square

Manchester, England is a not what many travelers expect and is a wonderful surprise. While well known as an Industrial city, it’s a city where many international visitors expect boorish drunks and soccer hooligans from all the false stereotypes going around. Remember Daphne Moon’s parents and brothers on the hit show, Frasier? Instead of that, visitors find a wonderful friendly city that has cultural attractions that rival the world’s best. And a lot of these great places are free of charge. Donations are accepted at most of the sights, but you don’t feel out of place if you don’t have a donation to give.

I’ll cover just a few sights below.I definitely want to return !

Two libraries that are architectural masterpieces are Chetham’s Library, in the School of Music and John Rylands Library.

Chetham’s Library is the oldest public library in the English speaking world. It was founded in 1653. It’s a great place full of old huge books and you’re surrounded by wood from floor to ceiling. It has a lot of interesting history. Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels met in the library while Marx visited Manchester. You can see where they sat and the books they read.

http://www.chethams.org.uk/

The John Rylands Library is a great example of Neo Gothic architecture and was opened to the public in 1900. It has one of the world’s finest collections of rare manuscripts and books. It was one of the first public buildings in Manchester to use electricity and actually generated its own until the 1950s. It had a unique ventilation system too. It is now part of the University of Manchester.

http://www.library.manchester….venir-Guide-TEXT.pdf

The Manchester Cathedral is worth a look too. I was really impressed with the stained glass. Although the windows were destroyed in an air raid in 1940, the modern ones are well done and have some awesome colors when the sun hits.