Cheap flights to Manchester

Once a manorial township, Manchester’s booming textile manufacturing industry during the Industrial Revolution saw it transforming into one of England’s major urban centres, reflected in nicknames such as “Cottonopolis” and “Warehouse City”. After the prosperity brought by the cotton mills, Manchester established itself as the financial centre of the region and has remained one of Northern England’s most thriving metropolises to this day.

The modern city continues to bloom as do the numbers of visitors arriving on cheap flights to Manchester. It is the United Kingdom’s fifth-largest financial centre outside of London and one of the biggest retail areas in terms of sales, a shopping Mecca that boasts the UK’s largest inner city shopping centre, the Arndale Centre.

Culturally, the city is also the equal of any in the country, with thriving arts and music scenes and many galleries and museums. Manchester’s music scene has produced many of the most popular British groups of recent decades such as The Smiths, The Buzzcocks, and Joy Division and The Stone Roses. Excellent music venues are in abundance here also, such as the Manchester Evening News Arena, which is the busiest indoor arena in the world and the largest of its kind in Europe.

Manchester climate

Although rainfall may occur at any point during the year, the summer months of July and August are usually warmest and driest, and the winter months of December, January and February the coolest and wettest.

Getting around Manchester

Manchester’s city centre is compact enough to mean that most of its attractions are reachable on foot without difficulty. However, the city has an excellent public transport system managed by the Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive (GMPTE), which includes buses, trams and trains.

The city’s centre is served by a free bus service called Metroshuttle which links major rail stations, car parks, shopping centres and businesses, and proves extremely useful for visitors and locals alike. You can get on these buses at transport terminals at Piccadilly, Oxford Road, Deansgate, Salford Central and Victoria among other places. Relatively cheap paid bus services in North and South Manchester are operated by First and Stagecoach for those wishing to travel further out.

Manchester’s mass transit tram system is known as Metrolink and covers much of the metropolitan area, including Harbour City, Victoria, Market Street, Piccadilly, Old Trafford and St Peter’s Square.

The Greater Manchester rail network offers services from Manchester Airport to the city centre as well as between locations within the city and from the city to other parts of the country.

What is good to know if travelling to Manchester?

• Castlefield, in West Central Manchester, is the site of Roman fort Mamucium from which the city takes its modern day name. The fort’s remains are preserved as a Scheduled Ancient Monument, and certain reconstructed buildings such as the gatehouse and granaries are open to the public. 
• Old Trafford Stadium offers guided tours of the home ground of the world’s most supported and well-known football team. You’ll get to stand in manager Alex Ferguson’s spot in the dugout, visit the trophy room and admire the team’s achievements, and even see the changing rooms where countless players have readied themselves for big matches. A selection of tour packages is offered, from single child and adult tickets to family tours.
• The John Rylands Library is housed in a sumptuously beautiful Victorian Gothic building on main thoroughfare Deansgate. Founded at the turn of the 19^th century in memory of local entrepreneur John Rylands, the library’s collection includes early examples of European printing such as the Gutenberg Bible and medieval illuminated manuscripts, as well as the papers of celebrated locals such as John Dalton and Elizabeth Gaskell.
• Manchester Art Gallery, housed in a Grade I listed building in the city centre, houses Manchester’s civic art collection and includes the nation’s most important collection of pre-Raphaelite art as well as a permanent collection of some of the foremost British art of the 20^th century, with works by Francis Bacon, Lucien Freud, and David Hockney among others.
• Chinatown in East Central Manchester and the Rusholme Curry Mile should be visited for a taste of multicultural Manchester. In these two locations, east and south Asian shops and restaurants can be found in abundance and visitors can gain an insight into the city’s ever-changing cultural melting pot.