To think that Manchester is awful?

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I came for the day to visit Elizabeth Gaskell's house museum (very nice) and have subsequently walked around, trying to find somewhere attractive, or with interesting shops (or any shop that isn't selling fast food).
Is there somewhere I've missed?

As a born and bred mancunian I rarely go into the city these days. There are some interesting suburbs in s manc which have undergone a regeneration of sorts. Withington has upped its game massively. And stockport is still trying to find it's feet but my money's that it will be next.

It's still relatively cheap to live there compared to the south so i think manchester will evolve as a place for London ex pats... but it's maybe not quite there yet.

If you just went to Elizabeth Gaskells house and walked around there, then yes there is plenty you have missed.
That being said you could have walked to the Whitworth Art Gallery and done Manchester museum - did you? Did you hop on a bus and go up Oxford Road into town? You should have done some research

Off topic but I am in Newcastle today for work and wow it is gorgeous. I had no idea how pretty it is. Not at all like I thought it would be.

I agree, my least favourite city I've been to!

I've seen plenty of this. What middle class Southerners don’t realise is they too have an accent - the same one as a lot of Tory-voting c*nts. Tell her to remind them of this and to stop inserting an unnecessary ‘r’ sound into words.

I think you’re being very unreasonable.

Please give our city another chance. It does have a major problem in that there have always been two centres, Deansgate and Piccadilly. When I was a child, the posh shops were around Deansgate and the department stores near Piccadilly. This meant a long trek between the two.

It’s not somewhere I’d go shopping these days, but there’s plenty to see for anyone who’s interested in history and architecture. We have at least four theatres, the Bridgewater Hall, a world class concert hall, two art galleries, several museums and many good restaurants.

Dont knock it - after all, you haven’t actually seen it.

But she kind of is? She’s walked from a train station to a visitor attraction. It should be better. People have commented on how amazing and international the Universities are but the whole top end of Upper Brook Street is just the rear end of ugly grey mismatching modern Uni buildings now - I was shocked last time I went back. The ‘amazing historic architecture’ is being swallowed up and hidden. If your last experience of Manchester is when you studied there in the 90s you wouldn’t recognise it now.

The biggest laugh I’ve had on this thread is people telling OP off for daring to not appreciate how great Manchester is then saying she should go to…Beech Road in Chorlton?! Way to validate the OP

YANBU I don't like Manchester particularly. I think the city centre is confusing if you don't know it well. I have to go for work and DS is at uni there so I'm a reasonably frequent visitor but I wouldn't chose to visit otherwise.

Liverpool, on the other hand, has fantastic architecture, an easy to navigate city centre and is generally a better place to visit as a tourist IMO.

It's not the most pleasant of city centres, aesthetically and in terms of nice stuff to do - there's a lot of much better city centres in the UK.

Manchester is best if you're a student or you're comfortably off and live in a Mumsnetty area (some bits of Chorlton, Didsbury, almost anywhere within Trafford) and you can easily avoid the city centre.

Has anyone else seen security guards in Greggs stores other than in Manchester?

Yes, London and Liverpool.

I'm from Yorkshire but lived IN Manchester for 10 years. I don't need to watch whatever it is you've mentioned.

Her house isn't in a great part of town

If you like galleries, we have the Whitworth and Manchester Art Gallery.

John Rylands Library on Deansgate is phenomenal, Chetham’s is the oldest public library in Britain and my personal favourite is the Portico, a former private library tucked away behind a seemingly innocuous door on the street near Manchester Art Gallery - they do amazing gourmet toasties.

Northern Quarter is trendy and buzzing - some really lovely cafes - and home to the superb Matt and Phred’s if you’d rather a drink with live music.

Plenty of decent shopping heading down towards Victoria and another favourite pub, Sinclairs Oyster Bar (cheapest drinks, best quality and in a quirky old building nestled in the shadow of the Cathedral - well worth a visit).

The Cathedral itself is well worth looking up, as is St Ann’s Church and a tiny hidden church tucked away between super tall buildings near Lincoln Square that we always called the Hidden Gem (but actually known as St Mary’s!). I was a bit shocked a couple of weeks ago to find they’d knocked all those buildings down to show off the church (and a bit sad, really, as it always felt like the best little secret).

We’ve got Roman ruins in a really lovely grassy spot near Castlefield/Deansgate which is perfect for picnics on sunny days like today and yesterday.

Theatres - oh, you missed a treat if you didn’t find the Royal Exchange theatre, near the equally lovely St Ann’s Square. The arcade is gorgeous and again, some top notch cafes. There‘s the Opera House, Palace and Contact theatres too.

There’s also the square and exhibition space at HOME - the buildings in that end of town are ace! One is made of overlapping bronzed scales, another completely covered in greenery. They’re new since I left a decade ago but holy heck, they’re new faves since I made it back!

Super close on the tram to Salford Quays, which now has a really nice waterfront thanks to Media City.

Platt Field’s Park is a lovely spot of an afternoon, with the lake and the ducks, as is Whitworth Park for that matter.

Mostly, though, it’s the vibe of the place. Just look at the buildings as you walk by…when you really look at them, they’re all uniquely beautiful. Each different but all interesting. Take some of the back streets and you can practically see the last 300 years of history unrolling in front of your eyes.

I’ve missed so much but gone on enough - I love my home town. I tried to leave after school but came back. I tried to leave after uni…but came back. It’s gritty and alive…with pockets of breathtaking beauty that are all the more so for being so unexpected.

You shoulda come with me - I’d have shown you all the good spots!

@IDontHateRainbows exactly this! You can walk and walk in London and see so much. The Thames path from the south right into London Bridge is amazing, through Rotherhithe and Wapping and seeing all the history there. And then the city, Covent Garden, soho and the amazing restaurants, the west end and the canals in north London. You can never get fed up of it and although I lived in SE London for 15 years I never felt out of place, which ironically I did when I returned home. I sort of hate the fact it's so much better, but it really is something else to live in London and experience everything it brings.

Love Manchester. 💕

Give over, there's hundreds of millions of United fans. Manchester is only a couple of million population. So yeah, most of them will not be from Manchester. Same with Liverpool. The two biggest English clubs by some distance.

YANBU left 18 years ago and every time I go back I’m glad I don’t still live there. Even the “naice” suburbs are traffic congested and boring AF.

Lots of superior Londoners/ Southerners on this thread. I like London but everyone I work with in London lives at least 90mins from our west end office in shiity boring places I won't name for fear of being just as obnoxious as the Manchester haters. If you actually live in Central London I would say lucky you because it costs a bomb but I don't fancy the attitude or the lifestyle.

End of the summer hols I jump on a tram for 15 mins, take DS to the science museum for a play (cos it's raining, of course) then on to the free bus and head over to the Northern Quarter to a shop selling manga and funkopops, he loves it there, then we went to his fave Japanese restaurant in Chinatown for conveyor belt sushi and dessert room upstairs. He picked up a leaflet about the mid autumn harvest festival whilst we stopped to get dragon fruit and seaweed from the Chinese supermarket. So last weekend he drags me off to that festival and it was fabulous. A really welcoming, cultural insight into Chinese traditions. Its great living somewhere where that's on your doorstep. I take my dc to the Halle or to the lowry and royal exchange theatre. There's loads of great parks and museums. It's not London but it is good fun here.

The imperial war museum is great but I'm not sure how many under tens id take. I do rate that.

Salford Quays is unbearably soulless. The BBC used to do tours but they used COVID as an excuse to discontinue them permanently. I don't do Corrie so that's lost on me completely.

The art galleries are a bit meh and small if you are used to other cities of much note. I've never felt the need to go back, compared to Liverpool's.

Mosi is great. However the closure of parts of it in recent years is a little disappointing.

Football. Yawn. It's really niche tbh.

You can't get near the town hall due to the renovation. Hopefully it'll be great once done though.

Afflecks. Good in the 90s when you were in your teens and early twenties. Now? Meh. Massively over rated especially by locals.

The Northern Quarter is still a bit meh if you aren't eating or drinking. If you are eating or drinking it's cracking. Fred Aldous excepted (I could quite happily spend thousands of pounds I don't have in there). Even then there's better parts of town now for eating and drinking - people who recommend the Northern Quarter are stuck in a bit of a time warp tbh.

I'd also argue with this a bit as dated:
Chinatown is a bit gritty but you can get some really decent food in the basement restaurants (if you're prepared to endure bad service, formica tables and plastic cutlery for amazing food

The redevelopment of Oxford Road has changed things a lot and expanded Chinatown really. I'd argue there's Old Chinatown and New Chinatown now. There's some great little places in the newer part which aren't 'gritty' at all. And I have to say some of the restaurants in the older part aren't as bad as you suggest at all and are very good value for the city centre

There's a bunch of really good craft breweries and taprooms which are fab if you like your beer - and they are reasonably priced.

I go into town a lot, but really, no I don't rate it as somewhere to take visitors for a 'tourist' day.

Don't get me started on the Christmas Markets. They've firmly jumped the shark and the city is even more hellish than it needs be in December (I'm a Christmas nutcase who loves sparkly Christmas things, but it's over priced, sprawling and unbearably busy to the point it felt like a crush risk the last time I went.

And yes I'd argue that in a lot of ways it's peaked and seen better days.

I love Manchester but... It doesn't compare as a tourist city well.

We’ve got Roman ruins in a really lovely grassy spot near Castlefield/Deansgate which is perfect for picnics on sunny days like today and yesterday

See. We are talking all kinds of stretching when we are using the Roman ruins.

Next you'll be saying 'take a walk through the city along the canal whilst dodging the human shit, it's great.

Honestly. I know there's local pride, but it's really not a particularly tourist friendly city.

No one who isn't from Manchester would rave about it like this!

On every northern thread someone has to be a dick 🙄

I went to manchester university in 1998 and graduated in 2001 it was still the victoria uni then separate from umist.

It is vastly different now the maths tower and precinct centre with the bridge over oxford road have been knocked down.

I have appliied for a job at the uni.

I live in middleton so i didnt need to stay in halls of residence.

I went to uni there. It’s a horrible city. The uni is good but I would never have stayed there post-graduation.

I've been a couple of times, and I find it a bit meh. Once for work, did have a good night, ended up in a jazz bar, then once to go see the Corrie set. Actually, just remembered I've been there another time in between those times, to stay with my husband when he was working there, and I was working not too far from Manchester at that time. But yeah, it's not a place that my husband and I particularly enjoy going to to be honest. Maybe I've been conditioned by my husband's football chanting of "oh Manchester, is full of shit, oh Manchester is full of shit". Apologies Mancunians, I can't stand his football chants either. I'm not a fan of the accent either (runs for cover).

Exactly.

Most of the haters probably live in some tedious Tory voting S.E. commuter town.

Anyone who doesn’t like Manc doesn’t like urban life.