One of the things Manchester does extremely successfully, in my opinion, is to mix contemporary architecture with the older buildings. The blocks here are just average office blocks, but I liked the orange and blue juxtaposition. There are many lovely Victorian (and in some cases, even older) buildings that have been beautifully renovated and repurposed, as we saw yesterday. Some of the much newer stuff is really quite exciting - like the 47-storey Beetham Tower. The WWII blitz badly damaged the city and you may recall that in 1996 the city centre was bombed by the IRA, with many people injured and a lot of destruction. But Manchester doesn't let things like that get it down. In fact you could argue that it is the stronger and better because of that. It's a lively, cosmopolitan, forward-looking city and I love visiting it.
Last Saturday it rained all day. (Situated west of the Pennines, the city can be rather wet.) Not a great day for photos - but a good excuse to hit the shops. I am not generally one who shops recreationally. I am more likely to need therapy after shopping than to use shopping as therapy. But my friend and I enjoyed our day out, and I will go back again hoping to get some better photos.
I've just come across a good Manchester blog - 'mancunian wave'. Have a trip over there and dip into Chrissy's unique look at her home area. And while you're there, vote for her - she's been shortlisted for the Manchester Blog Awards.
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Word verification does slow down the process of commenting. I find it a bit tedious when I haven't much time to visit other people's blogs and comment, which I like to do. So I've heeded Francisca's plea and taken it off mine. Last time I tried, I did get some very weird offerings, so apologies if you see any strange comments. I will monitor things for a week or two and see how it goes. I've left comment moderation for older posts as otherwise I tend to miss the comments. ( I don't get them sent by email - I have enough email as it is!)
I've been meaning to give Manchester a go for ages and almost went at the weekend (but ended up at Stoke on Trent visiting the Staffordshire hoard) I will get there some day.
ReplyDeleteWe should visit Manchester some time. So far, our visit to Manchester involved finding the car rental at the airport and the quickest way out of town.
ReplyDeleteI have removed word verification too. So far, so good.
ReplyDeleteBeing only two streets away at the time of detonation, I have extremely clear memories of the Manchester bomb!
Lovely combination of shapes and colors! Well done!
ReplyDeleteI agree..that is a beautiful contemporary building!
ReplyDeleteAnd welcome to the word verification free club! :)
Is that part of a giant windshield wiper on the bottom left side of the blue portion of the building or am I just seeing things? Very cool looking. ~Lili
ReplyDeleteOh, THANK you, dear jennyfreckles... for giving it a go without WV. xo
ReplyDeleteA close friend from here just came back from participating in a conference in Manchester and now I'm curious how he found the city. Frankly, I'd never thought of it as an exciting city. I like being proven wrong about such things. You got a fascinating geometric shot.
PS. I do get comments emailed to me. But very little of anything goes to my Inbox, as most of my regular mail is automatically filtered into directories (and you don't want to know how many directories I have!).
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