Manchester Day Trip

I’ve been to Manchester many times before, but almost always to go to a specific venue, at a blogging event or conference, or a meeting with friends. But now I was challenged* to organize a Manchester Day Trip for me and my husband. It sounded amazing. Of course, with us living in Liverpool, we don’t need accommodation, but you can check out hotels in Manchester on uk.hotels.com if you want to stay for the weekend or even longer. There are so many things to do in Manchester that you’ll not get bored.

I would suggest making a plan and booking everything at least a couple of days before the trip. We went on a weekday so it was not busy, but it was still a good idea to book. I’ve made two bookings and we also visited a museum. I’m going to talk about my day trip, as it went on.

First stop in our Manchester Day Trip was Cat Cafe. We’ve been to the cat cafe before and already knew how fun this place is. Imagine my delight when I saw that they opened a new venue in Liverpool. I will book tickets for that too.

They have 13 cats in Manchester, all very well taken care of. The price for the cafe includes all the hot drinks you might want to have. The only thing one needs to pay for are the cakes and any extra time they spend in the cafe. There are lots of toys, so customers can try to entice the animals to play.

My husband was the luckiest one, as only him managed to persuade cats to play. I had no luck and neither the rest of the customers. But that hardly matters, as the cast walk around, play with each other. It’s just nice to stay there and watch them sleep. This is relaxing and a very nice way to start the day.

Isn’t she gorgeous? Customers were taking turns to take her picture.

The rules say that we are not allowed to disturb the cats that are sleeping, of course. But we can interact with the ones that are awake. Of course, if they can be bothered to move. This one, on the left, was the model of the day, as everybody was taking pictures with her. But she didn’t leave her cosy spot.

The hot chocolate was great. They do serve lots of delicious sounding drinks and have a few cakes too.

After the hour passed at the Cat Cafe, we’ve continued with the next item on my plan.

That involved a visit to the Manchester Art Gallery.

I think this was the most striking painting in the collection. It’s called The Chariot Race and is oil on canvas by Alexander von Wagner, it was painted in the 19th century.

We’ve had a look around and I bought a book that was on sale at the gift shop. The visit to the museum lasted for a bit over an hour, just I imagined it would.

After that we went to lunch. As I mentioned earlier, I booked for us in advance. We went to 1847 Manchester. I’ve been to 1847 before and I was very eager to try their special Veganuary menu. Not only the dishes sounded great, but they are on offer this month. As my husband and I usually do, we’ve ordered two things from the menu and shared them.

For starters we’ve had crispy rice cake, mushrooms (shimeji, chanterelle, girolloes), white truffle foam, porcini dust, and parsley mousse (up) and smoked chipotle falafel, black bean, charred corn, blue tortilla, and tomato and lime salsa (down).

I loved both dishes. The falafel was a bit spicy, but right for me. My husband said it was a bit too spicy for him. I’d happily order both again.

For mains we’ve had smoked olive polenta, tomato ragu, courgette, pesto, pine nut, basil snow (left) and jerk chickpea, pineapple salsa, curried mango, pickled chilli, coconut, plantain crisps (right). Again, both dishes were delicious. The chickpea one was a bit spicy again, but I liked it. We both loved the smoked olive polenta thought. It looks amazing and it tasted as exciting as it looked.

For desserts we’ve had poached plums, sichuan peppercorn, oat, pistachio crumb (left) and dark chocolate, orange marmalade, hazelnut, salted toffee, bitter orange gel (right). My favourite was the poached plums dish. My husband preferred the dark chocolate one. Both dishes were fab.

I was delighted with my lunch at 1847 and I can’t wait to visit them again. If you are planning a day trip in Manchester, do take them into consideration. The food is delicious and the service was great too.

After that we went to do a bit of shopping. I bought a couple of things from The Body Shop and TK Maxx. There are so many fab shops in the centre that you can easily spend a day just in there.

Our day trip was coming to an end, as we headed towards the car park, when we passed by the National Football museum. This made me think of the other places I’ve visited in Manchester and that would too be great for a day trip, so here are three more locations you can incorporate in a Manchester Day Trip: National Football Museum, Imperial War Museum, and Jewish Museum (links to my posts).

*The spending money was gifted by Hotels.com, but all views and pictures are my own.