Manchester

We spent 3 nights in Manchester and on our first night had a lovely meal at the KRO bar in the heart of the city after checking into our Ibis hotel. The Whitworth Art Gallery was closing on the following Monday for a year to do some extensions and so they had organised a weekend of celebrations to say goodbye to the old gallery. We visited the community event on the Saturday and were enthralled  with the entertainment offered. We lunched in the park on Mumbai street food brought from a stall, very yummy then walked around the park looking at the stalls set up selling all sorts of items. We came across the Living Room tent with a stage, carpet on the ground and lounges to relax and listen to the music on offer. We caught Sura Susso, a young man from West Africa playing the Kora and singing. I have to say it was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard and we sat spelled bound listening to him sing and play his instrument. The gallery was open for free so we took a look around the exhibitions and afterwards moved outside to the larger stage and caught a jazz group with a women named Zoe Chiotis singing. She had a large audience and was very entertaining.  Back to the hotel to change for dinner at a local Malaysian restaurant, nice food but not much for the price.

Sunday we took our time and had a late breakfast. Luckily breakfast at the hotel on weekends was from 6.30am until 12 noon which I thought very civilised. We decided to just walk around to the large shopping centre then take in a movie. We saw The Way Way Back with Steve Carell and Toni Collette and we both really enjoyed this coming of age type movie. 

We got back to the hotel in time to repack the bags for the Ryanair flight to Paris on Monday morning.