When I was planning my flight to England, I invited my mother and step father to come spend a few days with me to enjoy Manchester before I moved into my dorm. They gladly accepted that invitation, and we spent four days playing tourist.
The city is huge, and as my previous post had already stated, traffic is crazy. It was much easier to walk, shuttle, and take the metro to all of the following destinations than it was to drive.
Castlefield Urban Heritage Park was the first thing we visited and it is one of my favorite places in Manchester. It is an elaborate park in the ruins of a Roman fort, lined with brick roads and shops, and divided by a canal (Council). It is rich in history, and everything about it is charming.
Another beautiful tourist attraction is the Manchester Cathedral. There was actually a church that was constructed on the same piece of land, before the Cathedral, which means that there has been a church on that plot of land since about 700 AD (Council). The Cathedral itself was constructed in 1215, and it has details and features of the ancient world, such as the hanging bridge and the elaborate hand carved misericords (Council). It was gorgeous.
The final thing we saw that I would like to write about was the Victoria Baths (which just celebrated its 110
th birthday). It is beautiful, but I particularly enjoyed it because of the way it demonstrated the old classist society. For example, it holds three pools: the first class men's pool (which is the largest), the second class men's pool (which is the second largest), and the women's pool (which is the smallest). I am not saying that I agree with these views, but I do recognize them, and the beauty of it. The beauty of it is that regardless of class, people took leisure in the same things at the Victoria Baths: pools, Turkish baths, and outdated hot tubs. These unlikely people are more alike than they think.
Visiting these places is like travelling back in time.
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