19 hours in Manchester

Sometimes, you only have a really short amount of time to spend somewhere and this was the case when I visited Manchester recently; I was there for the Blog & Beyond Roadshow, where I was speaking on a panel alongside the wonderful Anoushka. After a jam-packed train ride with my head in a book eating pizza bake rolls, I walked along to LEAF for the roadshow. The whole event was brilliant, props to Charlotte and Kirsty for hosting and also to Julia for her brilliant talk! Anyway, after the event P came to meet me for a whirlwind visit to Manchester; I'd booked a room at the easyHotel, and we decided to have a chilled out Sunday evening in the city.

easyHotel Manchester

As hotel rooms go, this is bloody small. I'd say there's not much more room then a cabin on a cruise or ferry, so if you're a big person in any way then you might struggle. Me and P were fine, though, and I don't think the easyHotel is bad at all. There's a bathroom (it doesn't lock or anything) and a double bed, a TV (that you pay extra for, like you do with the wifi) and two hangers in place of a wardrobe. There's a bin and a thermostat thing for the air-con/heating system, and that's pretty much it. Ours was a basement room and it was plenty warm enough, and as we literally only used it for sleeping it was fine! There's a coffee machine and a cold vending machine on the first floor, and a lift available too. I paid around £27 for a room on a Sunday night which I booked pretty close to the date, and I don't feel ripped off or anything. Would I recommend the easyHotel? If you're looking for budget accommodation in Manchester or you've left it last minute, then definitely! It's also really well located, just a few minutes from Piccadilly and a few minutes from the Northern Quarter's bars and restaurants. click to book

Sunday evening

We left the hotel and headed to Almost Famous, which was absolutely amazing. I had a Cherry Bomb cocktail which was a bit sour but delicious overall, followed by the Triple Nom burger (double cheese burger with pulled pork and BBQ sauce) and a side of Mac Balls, which are basically balls of deep friend macaroni cheese aka the most delicious thing you'll ever eat. P also had a cocktail, as well as burger and fries - the whole meal came to £43 so it's not particularly cheap but the food is absolutely to die for. My only complaints would be that the music is a wee bit loud and the toilets are a bit grim. But I'd definitely go back!

Anoushka had recommended a bar called Cottonopolis so we headed there, but it had too much of a business-y vibe for me and besides, it was £10.60 of two pints which is extortionate (I know, city centre drinking, I'm just spoilt by living somewhere that's pretty cheap to drink no matter where you go). So we just had the one, and backtracked to Dusktilpawn which genuinely looks like a pawn shop from the outside - the theming doesn't quite follow through to the interior of the bar, but it's nice inside all the same. Again, pretty expensive - fifteen quid for a tiny cocktail and a double whiskey.

We then wandered back down to our hotel to get some sleep - we did consider watching a documentary by casting P's phone to the TV, but you can't actually switch it on without paying to get the remote so we just went to bed instead.

Monday morning

Check out was 10am, so we got up/showered/ready at around 9ish, checked out and walked round the corner to the Wetherspoons at 49 Piccadilly for breakfast. P had a large breakfast and I just had one of the little breakfast wraps (but with no bacon/egg) - it was just a Spoons breakfast really, what can you say?

We had a couple of hours to kill until the train, which I'd timed purposely to get us into Liverpool just before a meeting I had arranged, so I had a little look at what was around. I originally wanted to go to the Football Museum because I knew P would love it but it was quite a walk away and it's pretty expensive to get into. However, 10 minutes walk away and completely free was the Manchester Art Gallery which was brilliant. I love art, although I don't always get it, and we were lucky enough to catch the Leonardo da Vinci: A Life in Drawing exhibition which is absolutely utterly mind-blowing - it's a collection of anatomical drawings and sketches and it's AMAZING. The gallery also has a Banksy, hidden in the Romanticism section, and loads of other cool art.

Then it was time for us to go (with a Krispy Kreme pit stop at the station of course) after a whirlwind 19 hours in the wonderful city of Manchester, which has charging ports in some of the bus stops by the way. Incredible!

Want to know how I spent 13 hours in Warsaw? CLICK HERE