After saying farewell to our family in Marrakesh, we boarded a flight to Manchester. It was only about a 3 hour flight but we landed during the end of Storm Amy, so it was a bit rough coming in and the safe landing received a round of applause. We were to spend nearly a week in Manchester trying (fruitlessly) to wash out the dust of our clothes and then moved to London for a few days before we headed South again, meeting a few friends along the way. I think it may be a regular occurrence for us to visit the UK in the fall to visit friends and catch up, as it really does feel comfortable and a great place to recharge.
Exploring Manchester
We landed quite late so we just decided to stay next to the airport where we could walk from the terminal. In the morning we had some time between checkout and check-in at our Airbnb so we enjoyed a sandwich and the first drinks in a week. We eventually got an Uber to our Airbnb and got caught up on laundry, cooked our own food again, and relaxed a bit with time for ourselves. One day we did head into Manchester for a bit of exploration and catching up with some friends.
Last year we had ended our Scotland Campervan excursion by visiting a few friends in Manchester, except they actually live outside of town by about 40 minutes and so we didn’t spend too much time exploring the city on our own. At that time we were trying to wash everything after the campervan and catch up with family, friends and the blog. This time we decided to meet up with them in town, because our friend is an excellent historical tour guide.
Our friends, I’ll refer to them as A & C, we first met them back in Vietnam and Cambodia on our G Adventures tour. As they live a bit farther out than the Airbnb we rented this time we decided to just meet them on the same train into Manchester. We arrived in Manchester Piccadilly station which was originally built in 1842, and you can see some of the original Victorian columns holding the train shed.
As we wandered out of the train station, catching up we headed towards the Castlefield Viaduct that was originally built at the end of the 1800s to carry heavy train traffic but was closed in the 1960s and has recently been turned into a garden.
Unfortunately as it was a Monday, this was closed so we couldn’t explore it, but we did get a picture through the door gap. Nearby are ruins from an old Roman fort built to guard roads between Roman strongholds of York and Chester, with the viaduct in the background.
Manchester is the world’s first industrial city, growing around a textile industry made from the cotton harvested in the United States. Liverpool had the harbor for the ships of cotton to arrive and I think it was transported to Manchester via train, if I remember correctly. Overtime Manchester built their own canals so the ships could skip Liverpool and they could avoid the tariffs. Meanwhile, between the cities the first passenger railway was born in 1830. We went to visit the Manchester terminus of this railway, but the exhibit was under renovation and we decided it was about time to find a drink and some lunch instead.
One of the taller towers we could see from the viaduct had a restaurant and bar on the roof so we decided to have ourselves a couple of beers and ciders to enjoy the view.
Most of the afternoon we spent wandering around the main areas of Manchester. We visited the corn exchange and a really unique building with an art installation on the ceiling that reminded me of Team Labs in Tokyo. We visited several bars and restaurants on the way for lunch, dinner, and plenty of cocktails. As Manchester is a financial center, some of the older banks have been converted to bars and had a really unique look! One of the bars was the Ivy which has several locations between London and Manchester, but had one of the most unique bathrooms I have ever seen. Sorry to give you just a massive photo gallery but you should be able to read captions describing each picture.
We enjoyed catching up with A & C and swapping stories about our travels over the past year. Thank you both for such a lovely time, and unfortunately we forgot to get a picture together once again!
Guiding Around London
After nearly a week it was time to leave Manchester. We walked to the station and boarded our 2 hour train to London Euston station.
We decided to splurge and stay at a nice hotel near the Tower of London, which the rooftop bar had a nice view of the tower bridge that we visited on our last night in the city at sunset. One advantage of this hotel was Mr. Wander’s status with the hotel gave us access to the lounge for enough snacks that worked as a dinner a few of the evenings. This lounge was quite busy though as it was one of the weekends of NFL games in London as The New York Jets and Denver Broncos played each other so there were plenty of Americans in town for the game.
One thing I was looking forward to was to catch up to a friend from back home, who will be traveling with us towards the end of the year. Let’s call her A, she’s the middle daughter of two of our close friends, and I actually taught her and her sisters piano about 8-10 years ago! She’s in Europe to study for the fall semester but has been taking advantage of the close access to so many countries. I’m honestly very proud of her for visiting all these countries and experiencing different cultures, so many are too afraid to wander much beyond the city in which they study.
We met at our hotel and walked across the Tower Bridge towards a few proper pubs that looked like good places for dinner. She was actually travelling with a friend that lives in her building so she joined us as well. As it was their first time in the city we quickly became tour guides, Mr. Wander lived here about 10 years ago with his first company so it’s a place we know fairly well. We ended up at a pub called Two Bridges where Mr. Wander and I found some tasty appetizers to share and they both tried their first fish and chips-complete with mushy peas of course!
Next we tried finding a rooftop hoping for a view of the river but we did find a cool spot to hang out the rest of the evening, although it was a tad loud with the music. Is this a sign of getting old, complaining about the loud music?
We chatted and enjoyed some additional snacks and drinks while learning about their travels. Another of their friends showed up as her flight had just came in, and she had been to London before so she was doing her own thing the following day. Eventually they got word the rest of the group had flown in as there was a total of 8 of them spending the weekend in London. As we were starting to fade it was time for us oldies to get back to the hotel to bed, especially as my voice was disappearing after trying to talk over the music for a few hours. It would take me more than a week to get it back to normal!
It was fun to learn about their adventures and to discuss some of the ideas for our travels in December. We left them at a tube station to catch up with their friends and we walked back to our hotel.
Next Time
We splurged a bit on a fancy flight experience with a new airline to get us to Cape Town, South Africa in style and well rested. We have a few days on our own relaxing and visiting a few wineries around the city. Soon it was time to meet up with our travelling companions for the next three weeks, including a few guides and a lovely Lando named Kwagga. The next several posts will cover an Overlanding Tour through four different South African countries: camping near elephants, embracing the desert heat, and learning about the complicated history massively influenced by colonization. I hope you’re ready for more amazing animal pictures by Mr. Wander! Until next time, Cheers!
Leave a Reply