Manchester

Today is Sunday

We had an early breakfast and headed off for the railway station arriving one hour  early, Tammy is now awake to my tricks. We passed through Leeds where we had been a few weeks ago.
It was interesting seeing the countryside from a different angle.

We left Durham in the rain arrived in Manchester to a warm welcome.  Auntie Anne, and uncle Geoff  were at the train station, and the Sun shone.  We headed off through the city on our personalised guided tour en route to our lunch destination.


Manchester is an interesting city with a mixture of old and new buildings, partly caused by the IRA bombing some 20 years ago that took out a fair chunk of the city centre.

 

We arrived at our lunchtime destination and met up with Steven's cousin Wendy, it was great to catch up after 43 years. Steven and Wendy soon found out they had something in common, A love of ALE.

We had an excellent lunch and swapped many funny stories, the pints were perfect.
The Old Wellington Inn. The oldest building in Manchester, originally built in 1552 and was damaged in the IRA bombing in 1996. It was decided to relocate the building during it's restoration 300 metres closer to the Cathedral to make way for planned redevelopment of the city. It now sits in 'Shambles Square', Shambles being the original name of the street when it was built.

After lunch we visited the Royal Exchange Theatre which is an amazing building with a huge glazed domed roof in it. The building was originally the exchange for cotton


 

We moved on to Wendy's local watering hole for a coffee, The Bank Pub, Wendy and Steven had another pint.


 




It was time to head for the station, we reclaimed our baggage and made it to the train with time to spare (about two minutes).  The way to deal with catching a train is not to panic, and not to rush, just relax, and let the ale work its magic. I was certain Steven was intent on staying in Manchester.  We spread our luggage through three different carriages.
It was lovely to have a personalised tour, and provided with a great lunch,

Said goodbye to uncle Geoff, Auntie Ann and Wendy and headed off towards London.

As luck would have it we are sitting next to the shop and they sell beer, what a wonderful day.

We decided to use the trains to get to our next hotel at Heathrow. It was a testing experience dragging all of our luggage through the underground, we made it, but not until 10.30pm.