Manchester City Centre

Carole wanted to go into Manchester today to do some shopping and I cleverly packed my small camera bag so that I could dodge the shops and instead take some pictures. Manchester city centre is wonderfully photogenic and even though I didn't stray too far there were still plenty of opportunities for photographs:


The Urbis building near Victoria Station was built in 2002 on land that was decimated by the bomb in 1996. This is a futuristic looking building whose exterior is almost entirely made of glass panels which reflect the other buildings. The two main sides to the building meet at a curved corner which reminds you of the bow of a ship.


The Cathedral is almost lost among the more modern glass buildings around it, but though modest in size, especially when compared to cathedrals in other big cities, it is still worthy of attention. The building was constructed over a period of 600 years and some parts date to 1215.


The Arndale Centre is where many of the new shops can be found (and Carole too). This whole area was destroyed by the IRA bomb and rebuilding work has only recently finished with a new flagship stores for Selfridges, Marks & Spencer and plenty others.


The Printworks, opposite the Urbis building, used to be the Manchester headquarters for Robert Maxwells' newspapers, but it became derelict when newspaper printing ceased soon after his death. After the bomb it was redeveloped as a leisure complex with bars, restaurants and a large cinema to attract visitors.

With so much choice for food, we opted for Pizza Express before finally catching the train home.