Manchester, England

Competing with Birmingham for the right to call itself England’s second city, Manchester has much more to offer than Take That and its famous football team. Reinvigorated by a decade of redevelopment, modern Manchester is a city where former factories are filled with celebrity nightspots and where relics of history rub shoulders with some of Britain’s most eye-catching modern architecture. It’s all a far cry from the grim industrial city that inspired Oasis, the Stone Roses, the Smiths and the Happy Mondays. And to think, this might never have happened were it not for the IRA bombing of 1996, which opened up the center for its dramatic ...

Competing with Birmingham for the right to call itself England’s second city, Manchester has much more to offer than Take That and its famous football team. Reinvigorated by a decade of redevelopment, modern Manchester is a city where former factories are filled with celebrity nightspots and where relics of history rub shoulders with some of Britain’s most eye-catching modern architecture. It’s all a far cry from the grim industrial city that inspired Oasis, the Stone Roses, the Smiths and the Happy Mondays. And to think, this might never have happened were it not for the IRA bombing of 1996, which opened up the center for its dramatic make-over. Helped by the legendary civic pride of its inhabitants, Manchester is now challenging London when it comes to music and the arts. Museums and venues for performing arts abound and the nightclub scene raves on in the Northern Quarter, the Gay Village and the Printworks. Then there’s the football ("soccer" for Americans, of course) — every year, hundreds of thousands of visitors make the pilgrimage to Old Trafford, hallowed home ground of Manchester United.

About the Expert

Joe Bindloss has written more than 30 guidebooks for Lonely Planet, Time Out and other publishers, with a focus on Southeast Asia, the Indian Subcontinent and island nations.