Travelogue: Manchester and London
Manchester & London - May 2015
Thursday evening -> Friday Morning: Flight from JFK to Manchester
-Flight to Manchester from JFK on a budget airline just expanding to the US: Condor/Thomas Cook. I get insanely cheap one way fare and my return flight from Berlin is paid for in miles I've accumulated from traveling. So, a relatively cheap trip to and from, all things considered.
-I'm expecting no frills and no food on the flight, but am pleasantly surprised to receive free drinks, snacks, a dinner, and breakfast. None of the food is at all good, mind you, and most of it is prepackaged stuff all put together in a tray, but I'll take it.
-I arrive in Manchester with no problem. It's the second biggest city in England after London, and feels nothing like London at all. It's nice as far as secondary cities go, but there turns out to be really nothing to do. There's a shopping strip near the train station and my hotel with a lot of departments stores and chains, as well as a small, cute market of food stalls.
-I take a train to Chester Zoo, as recommended by my friend Z, who lived in the area a few years ago. I get a combined ticket to the zoo as well as the bus to the zoo and train fare at the train station, and get there in about 1.5 hours, all told. It's a pretty nice zoo, though it is raining, and I think the highlight is watching a couple of baby elephants play together in their pool. Adorable.
-I return to to Manchester after a bus ride through downtown Chester, which has some lovely Tudor archictecture to look at. I'm staying at a very nice Doubletree hotel (once again, using some points I racked up from previous travel so the stay is free). The room is nice and modern, on a high floor with a view of a construction site next door. Ah well.
Saturday: Manchester to London
-I pay for breakfast at my hotel, which is a good and solid English Breakfast with a bit of assorted sliced meats and yogurts on the side. I take a last walk around the shops in the center before I head to the train station 2 minutes walk from my hotel, pleased I decided against staying longer in Manchester.
-I take a Virgin train in economy class to London. It's a nice ride, filled with rolling fields of sheep and lambs (breeding season) and yellow rape seed oil (which is used to make canola oil and generates a great deal of income for the local farmers, a train conductor informs me).
-Returning to London is wonderful. I take the tube to the hotel using an old Oyster card, which never expires, and settle into a divey place in the nice area of Kensington. The room and beds are clean enough, which is what I care about, and it's an easy walk to several tube stops. It's centrally located in London for a very cheap price, which makes sightseeing and getting around far easier than when I stayed at a nicer hotel further outside of London, thus requiring a 45 minute ride in on the tube every morning.
-After dropping off my things, I set off for The Globe Theatre to see The Merchant of Venice starring Jonathan Pryce. The theater is beautiful and so is the day, so thankfully there's no rain or wind or storm to come in through the open roof. I have a partial view ticket which isn't ideal, but certainly workable, and preferable to the 5 pound standing room only tickets. 3 hours is a long time to stand and stare up at the stage.
-The show is excellent, and I enjoy my leisurely walk along the Thames. It's great to be back in London, and even better now that I've been before and so know what to expect. The lack of a language barrier helps, as well.
Sunday: Hampton Court
-In addition to seeing a show at the Globe, I get to cross another item off my London bucket list: seeing the Hampton Court Palace. Me and friend J take a train from Waterloo to Hampton Court, which is very easy, and spend a beautifully sunny days exploring the grounds and the interior of the palace. There's a pretty chapel, the Great Hall of the castle, some nice courtyards, and a hedge maze that is indeed a functional maze. An excellent field trip out of London proper, all around.
-We return to London to have afternoon tea at Sketch, a fun and modern group of restaurants/bars. Everything is decorated in pink and the food is outstanding.
-In the evening, we meet up with a friend of a friend of J's, a Canadian living in London, and are introduced to his English wife and various friends. We while the evening away at the Black Prince Pub (which is the pub featured in the movie Kingman) and I get the chance to have a lengthy discussion with a German about the history of Berlin in preparation for my next stop in Europe.
Monday: East End Food Tour
-J and I attend a food tour in the East End, a part of London I hadn't had any opportunity to explore before. There's a bacon butte, bread and butter pudding (this was probably one of my favorites), fish and chips, and curry from a Bangladeshi place called Aladin in Brick Lane. It was interesting to learn about the history of different parts of the East End, where various waves of immigrants have passed through, and where many hipsters now reside in a gentrification wave (a pattern which appears to be repeating itself across many cities all over the world).
-In a complete 180 from the East End, J and I head over to Fortnum and Mason. If I weren't continuing on to Berlin after, I would have bought many things, but as it was, I settled for having some tea and scones there.
-In the evening, I walked along the Thames again to the National Theatre, checking out the Jubilee Gardens and the London Eye (didn't get on it, though). I watched Chiwetl Edjiofor in a show called Everyman, which was entertaining and thought provoking. The Olivier Theatre where it was performed was sleek and very modern.
Coming up tomorrow: my notes from Berlin!
Thursday evening -> Friday Morning: Flight from JFK to Manchester
-Flight to Manchester from JFK on a budget airline just expanding to the US: Condor/Thomas Cook. I get insanely cheap one way fare and my return flight from Berlin is paid for in miles I've accumulated from traveling. So, a relatively cheap trip to and from, all things considered.
-I'm expecting no frills and no food on the flight, but am pleasantly surprised to receive free drinks, snacks, a dinner, and breakfast. None of the food is at all good, mind you, and most of it is prepackaged stuff all put together in a tray, but I'll take it.
-I arrive in Manchester with no problem. It's the second biggest city in England after London, and feels nothing like London at all. It's nice as far as secondary cities go, but there turns out to be really nothing to do. There's a shopping strip near the train station and my hotel with a lot of departments stores and chains, as well as a small, cute market of food stalls.
-I take a train to Chester Zoo, as recommended by my friend Z, who lived in the area a few years ago. I get a combined ticket to the zoo as well as the bus to the zoo and train fare at the train station, and get there in about 1.5 hours, all told. It's a pretty nice zoo, though it is raining, and I think the highlight is watching a couple of baby elephants play together in their pool. Adorable.
-I return to to Manchester after a bus ride through downtown Chester, which has some lovely Tudor archictecture to look at. I'm staying at a very nice Doubletree hotel (once again, using some points I racked up from previous travel so the stay is free). The room is nice and modern, on a high floor with a view of a construction site next door. Ah well.
Saturday: Manchester to London
-I pay for breakfast at my hotel, which is a good and solid English Breakfast with a bit of assorted sliced meats and yogurts on the side. I take a last walk around the shops in the center before I head to the train station 2 minutes walk from my hotel, pleased I decided against staying longer in Manchester.
-I take a Virgin train in economy class to London. It's a nice ride, filled with rolling fields of sheep and lambs (breeding season) and yellow rape seed oil (which is used to make canola oil and generates a great deal of income for the local farmers, a train conductor informs me).
-Returning to London is wonderful. I take the tube to the hotel using an old Oyster card, which never expires, and settle into a divey place in the nice area of Kensington. The room and beds are clean enough, which is what I care about, and it's an easy walk to several tube stops. It's centrally located in London for a very cheap price, which makes sightseeing and getting around far easier than when I stayed at a nicer hotel further outside of London, thus requiring a 45 minute ride in on the tube every morning.
-After dropping off my things, I set off for The Globe Theatre to see The Merchant of Venice starring Jonathan Pryce. The theater is beautiful and so is the day, so thankfully there's no rain or wind or storm to come in through the open roof. I have a partial view ticket which isn't ideal, but certainly workable, and preferable to the 5 pound standing room only tickets. 3 hours is a long time to stand and stare up at the stage.
-The show is excellent, and I enjoy my leisurely walk along the Thames. It's great to be back in London, and even better now that I've been before and so know what to expect. The lack of a language barrier helps, as well.
Sunday: Hampton Court
-In addition to seeing a show at the Globe, I get to cross another item off my London bucket list: seeing the Hampton Court Palace. Me and friend J take a train from Waterloo to Hampton Court, which is very easy, and spend a beautifully sunny days exploring the grounds and the interior of the palace. There's a pretty chapel, the Great Hall of the castle, some nice courtyards, and a hedge maze that is indeed a functional maze. An excellent field trip out of London proper, all around.
-We return to London to have afternoon tea at Sketch, a fun and modern group of restaurants/bars. Everything is decorated in pink and the food is outstanding.
-In the evening, we meet up with a friend of a friend of J's, a Canadian living in London, and are introduced to his English wife and various friends. We while the evening away at the Black Prince Pub (which is the pub featured in the movie Kingman) and I get the chance to have a lengthy discussion with a German about the history of Berlin in preparation for my next stop in Europe.
Monday: East End Food Tour
-J and I attend a food tour in the East End, a part of London I hadn't had any opportunity to explore before. There's a bacon butte, bread and butter pudding (this was probably one of my favorites), fish and chips, and curry from a Bangladeshi place called Aladin in Brick Lane. It was interesting to learn about the history of different parts of the East End, where various waves of immigrants have passed through, and where many hipsters now reside in a gentrification wave (a pattern which appears to be repeating itself across many cities all over the world).
-In a complete 180 from the East End, J and I head over to Fortnum and Mason. If I weren't continuing on to Berlin after, I would have bought many things, but as it was, I settled for having some tea and scones there.
-In the evening, I walked along the Thames again to the National Theatre, checking out the Jubilee Gardens and the London Eye (didn't get on it, though). I watched Chiwetl Edjiofor in a show called Everyman, which was entertaining and thought provoking. The Olivier Theatre where it was performed was sleek and very modern.
Coming up tomorrow: my notes from Berlin!