RED RIDING HOOD

They call you love in Manchester. The taxi driver, the lady at the cashmashine, your friend that recently moved to Manchester, the guy who wants randomly pay your drink at the bar etc…

The vibe is so good.

I arrived a bit before midnight to the airport at needed to take the taxi to my hotel.

I was happily surprised that Little Black Cab is waiting for me in front of the building. 🙂

And there is so many room in this car.

My hotel was a bit far away from the city – in Stockport. So I was taking a Doubledecker and explored a bit the suburbeans of Manchester. It is part of Greater Manchester and where the River Goyt and Tame merge to create the River Mersey.

When I arrived to the city, my first stop was the Picadilly Gardens – there she was, the Queen Victoria sitting in her glory of imperialism. So I got my first hint – the city was developed under her reign.

I was caught with Saturday vibe, music in the street and youngsters scrolling down the center having their coffee-to-go. I shopped around, had my fast brunch and continue to discover.

The second stop was Town Hall – a Victorian, neo-gothic municipal building from 19th century.

I continued my way to more victorian epoche – The John Ryland’s Library. Now, if you thought Manchester is culturally empty – you are wrong! This a late-Victorian neo-Gothic building on Deansgate was opened to public in 1900 by  Enriqueta Augustina Rylands in memory of her husband, John Rylands.

This victorian lady, meaning in seek for education got the special collections  believed to be among the largest in the United Kingdom from medieval illuminated manuscripts and examples of early European printing, including a Gutenberg Bible, the second largest collection of printing by William Caxton, and the most extensive collection of the editions of the Aldine Press of Venice – a Venetian humanist, scholar, and educators press foundation (probably the first in Europe) that printed Bible and literature wworks in local veneto language rather than in Latin due to mass education of people.

In the times of Reformation, King Henry VIII executed both Protestants and Catholics who challenged his reformation (Anglican Church). This included prominent figures like his Chancellor Thomas More who wrote Utopia, about the political system of an imaginary, ideal island nation.

This public executions were suppose to serve as warning to others but they attracted the crowd from many cities across England.

With discovery of printing press the Lutheran’s message helped to spread across Europe and further to new continents.

Clearly it was a war in print as Luther printed many pamphlets and documents.

Below the examples of Martin Luther’s thesis agaist the Indulgence – (in the Roman Catholic Church) a grant by the Pope of remission of the temporal punishment in purgatory for money, widespread during the later Middle Ages.

Following this path, in 19th century Manchester became the world’s first great industrial city. It gained international reputation during the 19th century industrial revolution for making cotton and other textiles.

Many radical and innovative ideas about politics, economics and science have emerged from this complex urabn community. Hence I visited People’s History Museum where the story is told in following way:

Manchester was the world’s first great industrial city. It gained an international reputation during the 19th century for making cotton and other textiles. As the production was spreading, the need for more people working on machines was needed but these were working in very poor conditions, 16 hours per day and child labour was a very known fact.

In 1819 during the peaceful demonstrations requiring the right to vote, 18 people were killed in the Peterloo Massacre.

The Industrial revolution was a period of great change which brought to Great Reform Act and Thories and Wigs and Liberals. The museum describes the roots of todays British political parties and establishment.

The museum is former storage warehouse so I was making photos of rests of old machines, the dam door etc as it is placed at the river Irwell at Salford – former commercial area with many boats taking goods and warehouses.

Canals and later railways provided efficient methods of transporting goods. The invention of steem machine resulted with first railway between Manchester and Liverpool.

Over the past 200 years Manchester have developed into a vibrant community. Individuals such as John Dalton achieved world – wide recognition for their contributions to science and technology. Hence first atom was split in Mnachester, first computer comes from Manchester University etc.

Several important political campaign started in Manchester including the sufragette movement. 

Frydryk Chopin (polish/ french composer) enjoyed his time in Manchester too. He visited the city a ear before his death in age of 39. He performed despite his great illness insisting to allow people of England to enjoy his music.

Continuing through Deansgate – a main road through the city centre I went to Manchester Cathedral and Medieval Quarter. My heart wanted to melt as I adore meadieval times and cozy wooden bars.

The Cathedral was currently under renovation, especially the tower.

But this absolutely amazed me 🙂

I needed to buy myself a book 😀 😀

Talking about churches, I ended up in some Hidden Gem and entered the St Ann Church. The Holy Stations are completely 21st century – never seen so far and it is great mystery to discover the content even though is well known.

The last tourist site I visited was the National Football Museum. I entered there for free. Don’t understand how but I was with some children’s group and we all entered and started to admire gained trophies of England.

I finished my day in a pub drinking some local beer from Stockport of a funky name: Dizzie Blonde. That night the Manchester United and Newcastle were playing football and the rivalry was quite big. The crowd in pub was merry and cheerful. 🙂

The next day I visited Liverpool.

But if anyone ever asks me to choose: Manchester is love!