Manchester’s Urbis museum.

We left York later than planned yesterday, so after getting lost, then breaking for tea and cake in Skipton didn’t roll into Manchester until some time around seven. A quick shower and we were out for a walk, surprising ourselves when we ended up back where we’d started ten minutes later. Just as well, really: we were frozen, so dived into an Italian restaurant full of noisy Norwegians in the city to watch some football match and got ourselves warmed up.

Actually, before blathering on about Manchester, Skipton was quite nice. Lots of thick stone walls, a little river, some winding streets and a lot of cold. Also, a big empty tea shop that we had all to ourselves. We’re getting a lot of places to ourselves this week. In York it was the railway museum, and this morning we had Urbis, the museum about urban areas in the middle of Manchester. It’s very hands on, and in a building that’s worth seeing for the architecture alone.

Skipton wasn’t really what I was expecting. I was thinking it was where Calendar Girls was set, but on thinking again reckon it was probably Skipley. Or Shipley. Or Shipton. Or something like that. I’ll have to check when we get home, as we’re still started of Internet access. Seems nobody has though of providing some unsecured, open wireless network nearby that we can conveniently latch onto through the window.

Tea drunk and cake eaten, we carried on, dropping down onto the motorway after doing all the pretty cross-country bits.

We must have driven up and down Portland Street four of five times before we eventually found our hotel in Manchester. People probably thought we were kerb crawling. But anyhow, we checked in, went out, ate, and then went down to Canal Street.

It was surprisingly OK. Not at all like the cliquey, grim Old Compton Street in London. We started off in Taurus, where they were happy for us to sit in the tables reserved for eating to just have a coffee, then went on to Via Fossa. Very gothic. Busy in a comfortable kind of way, but still loads of places to sit down with nobody nearby, so I’m guessing Thursday night isn’t the best for going out in Manchester.

By 11 it was starting to tip out, so we mooched on to Manto for ‘just one more’ but ended up having four because it was buy one get one free. Warning us beforehand would have been polite, but there you go.

So, this morning it wasn’t a particularly energetic start. We spent, I don’t know, an hour or so sitting in a cafe reading the papers like ladies of leisure then wandered around the shops and the museum. The first time we actually picked up any great speed was when we realised we had to get the car out of the multi-storey to avoid a hefty bill, at which point we almost ran, then headed out of the city through Stockport (a bit grim) and on across the Peak District to Buxton.

How ironic that on the fountain in the middle of Buxton they have screwed little plates warning that the water is not fit for human consumption. They are fairly irrelevant, though, as there is another fountain around the corner

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