The best things to do in Manchester

The big sights

Grand Victorian buildings and the museums that explain how the city changed the world.

1. 01

   John Rylands Library

   Landmark

   

   From Deansgate it looks like a cathedral, and inside it feels like one. This neo-Gothic library was built by Enriqueta Rylands in memory of her husband, a cotton magnate, and opened to readers in 1900. The reading room is the showpiece: a long vaulted hall of pale stone, stained glass and book-lined alcoves. It is part of the University of Manchester and holds some extraordinary treasures, including one of the earliest known fragments of the New Testament. A must for book lovers, and for anyone who needs twenty quiet minutes.

2. 02

   Science and Industry Museum

   Museum

   

   Manchester's story is the story of the Industrial Revolution, and this museum tells it on the right spot: the site of Liverpool Road station, the terminus of the world's first inter-city passenger railway. Expect thundering textile machinery, early computers and the tale of how cotton made the city. It is hands-on, noisy and very good with children. Parts of the historic site have been under long-term restoration, so check what is open before you set your heart on a particular gallery.

3. 03

   Manchester Art Gallery

   Museum

   

   A handsome Greek-revival building on Mosley Street holding the city's art collection. It is best known for its Pre-Raphaelites, a roomful of jewel-coloured Victorian paintings by Rossetti, Millais, Holman Hunt and Ford Madox Brown, but there is plenty of modern work, craft and fashion too. It is the right size for an hour or two, and the café is a civilised place to wait out a shower.

4. 04

   Manchester Museum

   Museum

   The university's museum on Oxford Road reopened after a major rebuild with new galleries devoted to South Asia and to Chinese culture, alongside its long-loved Egyptian collection, a vivarium of rare frogs and a cast of a Tyrannosaurus rex called Stan. It is a friendly, family-minded place in a grand Victorian building, and pairs well with a walk through the university quarter to the Whitworth gallery in its park.

Football and the Quays

Two giant clubs, one national museum and a reborn dockland.

1. 05

   Old Trafford

   Activity

   

   The home of Manchester United, known to fans as the Theatre of Dreams. On non-match days you can tour the stadium, walk down the players' tunnel, sit in the dugout and browse a museum crammed with trophies and the club's long, sometimes tragic, history. Blues are catered for across town, where Manchester City run tours of the Etihad Stadium. Either way, getting a ticket for a league match takes planning well ahead.

2. 06

   National Football Museum

   Museum

   

   In the sloping glass Urbis building by Victoria station, this is the national collection of the game England gave the world. There are historic shirts, famous balls and trophies, plus plenty of interactive challenges where children, and competitive adults, can test their penalty-taking. It works even if you support nobody. The social history, from factory teams to the modern game, is told with real affection.

3. 07

   The Lowry

   Landmark

   

   The old Manchester docks at Salford Quays were rebuilt around this gleaming steel arts centre, named after L. S. Lowry, the painter of matchstick figures and mill chimneys. Its galleries hold a large collection of his work, and its theatres host touring drama, dance and comedy. The waterside around it, linked by footbridges to MediaCity and the BBC's northern home, makes a good afternoon's stroll.

4. 08

   Imperial War Museum North

   Museum

   

   Across the water from The Lowry stands one of the most striking buildings in the north: Daniel Libeskind's design of three clashing aluminium shards, meant to represent a globe shattered by conflict. The floor slopes, the walls lean, and that sense of unease is deliberate. Inside, the focus is on how war shapes ordinary lives. Every so often the lights drop and the whole main hall becomes a screen for an immersive film.

Neighbourhoods to wander

1. 09

   The Northern Quarter

   Neighbourhood

   

   Manchester's creative heart: a grid of old warehouses filled with record shops, vintage stores, coffee roasters and bars. The red-brick fire escapes look so much like old New York that film crews regularly use the streets as a stand-in. Start at Afflecks, a multi-storey indoor market of independent stalls that has dressed the city's teenagers for decades, then follow the street art around Stevenson Square. By night the area becomes one long bar crawl.

   Tip: Browse the shops by day and come back after dark: the best bars are often behind unmarked doors or down in basements.

2. 10

   Castlefield

   Neighbourhood

   Where Manchester began. The Romans built a fort here, and you can still see its reconstructed gateway. Centuries later the Bridgewater Canal arrived, then the railways, leaving a dramatic tangle of waterways, cobbles and towering Victorian viaducts. Today it is the city's calmest corner, with canal boats, waterside pubs and an outdoor arena. On a sunny evening the beer gardens fill up fast.

3. 11

   Ancoats

   Neighbourhood

   Just beyond the Northern Quarter, Ancoats was the world's first industrial suburb, a district of enormous cotton mills and workers' terraces. The mills still loom over the canal, but now they hold flats, bakeries and some of the most talked-about restaurants in the city. Come hungry. Cutting Room Square is the centre of things, and the streets around it are the place for a long, lazy dinner.

4. 12

   Canal Street and the Gay Village

   Nightlife

   

   One of the best-known LGBTQ+ districts in Britain runs along the Rochdale Canal, a short walk from Piccadilly station. Bars and clubs line the towpath, tables spill outside in summer, and the party goes late most nights of the week. Manchester Pride takes over the area over the August bank holiday weekend. In nearby Sackville Gardens, look for the memorial statue of Alan Turing sitting on a bench.

Eat and drink

1. 13

   The Curry Mile

   Food

   

   A stretch of Wilmslow Road in Rusholme, south of the universities, that glows with neon after dark. It made its name with Pakistani and Indian curry houses, and today the mix is wider: Middle Eastern grills, shawarma bars, sweet shops and shisha cafés, all open late. It is busy, loud and good value, and a favourite with students for exactly those reasons.

2. 14

   Chinatown

   Food

   

   A few compact streets behind the Art Gallery, entered beneath a towering ornamental archway on Faulkner Street that was made in China and shipped over. It is one of the largest Chinatowns in Britain, with Cantonese restaurants, bakeries, supermarkets and bubble tea on every corner. Come for dim sum at lunchtime, and for the dragon parade if you are in town for Chinese New Year.

Day trips

1. 15

   The Peak District

   Day trip

   

   Britain's first national park begins almost where the suburbs end. Trains on the Hope Valley line run from Manchester Piccadilly into the hills, stopping at villages such as Edale, the starting point of the Pennine Way, and Hathersage. The landscape is all gritstone edges, green dales and dry-stone walls, with a good pub at the end of nearly every walk. Pack boots and a waterproof; the weather on the tops changes quickly.

Where to stay in Manchester

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