[collaboration] Manchester, the city that has it all! Oh okay, perhaps it isn’t the city that has it all, but surely it is pretty close? I have been working with hotels.com who gifted me £70. As someone who could normally spread that amount of cash over a month or two, it was a fun challenge.
Manchester certainly has a lot going for it and if you want to stay (and be budget friendly with a kitchen) then
serviced apartments Manchester from Hotels.com are definitely worth a look. Serviced apartments give you the benefit of hotel location, with the flexibility to cook and chill out in your own space.
Fun day out in Manchester
From canal walks to exhibitions about the sun, vegan full English breakfast, science, shopping and golf around a junk yard, Manchester might not have it all, but it has a lot! On my day out with £70, I tried to cover as much of it as I could in one day and here’s how we got on!
A bit of everything
I have to admit that I was quite excited about the opportunity to have £70 to play with. As we don’t often eat out, I thought we would start with a delicious brunch at Leaf, which looks lovely. But that was to come after a walk in true Urban Wanderer style. We left home to walk through Philip’s Park Cemetery and Park en route to the Ashton Canal.
When planning our day, I wanted to make sure we had variety and to cover the many aspects of Manchester. Starting out in our local park and walk down the canal wasn’t just lovely, but it also helped to get us breakfast ready.
We wandered an indirect route to Portland Street, where we were heading for food at Leaf. Taking different routes and following your curiosity is a sure-fire way to find out more about a place and to see it in a different light. Our wander down a quiet Canal Street was a vast change to how it normally is on a sunny day, for starters.
Spend: £0.00
Breakfast at Leaf on Portland
I have been rather curious about Leaf for some time now. Partially for the number of Instagram posts it appears in and also because it is situated in the old CUBE architecture gallery space.
A light, bright and airy space to enjoy a veggie and vegan breakfast with some delicious loose leaf tea. We wouldn’t have normally veered away from our cheap and cheerful favourite joints, but after enjoying Leaf, we might be tempted to try.
Two Full English (veggie & vegan) with two loose leaf teas: £20.50
Bellies fed, we meandered our way down towards Deansgate to go to The Sun exhibition at the Science and Industry Museum. Although this is somewhere we venture to fairly regularly (there are picnic spots nearby) we don’t always visit the paid exhibitions. Our route over was only interrupted once, ahem twice, when I spotted a local market and wanted to see St John’s park.
Exercising the brain
A swift snoop and no spending later, we made our way up the stairs to the bright and golden entrance to the exhibition. I can guarantee that any paid exhibition at the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester is that it will be both vast and brilliant. From the first few moments, I knew it would live up to my expectations.
If you have any curiosity about our solar system and the power of the sun for creating energy, creating our waking cycles and healing tuberculosis, then it is definitely for you. We even got to enjoy the hands on activities, which we don’t normally get to, so were super chuffed on our visit.
We did also sneak in a bit of browsing of the free exhibitions. Every time I visit I discover something new and learn more about this fantastic city – totally not biased!
Two Tickets to exhibition: £16.00
Totally on Par
In our imagination, we like to think that we are pretty qualified golfers. It may also be true that we have never really played real golf. Bit when it comes to a bit of the crazy kind, we can hit it like anything. Junkyard Golf Club has been making the rounds in the city for a few years, yet we have never made it. Seeing as we had both the time and the money, it was high up on our activities for the day.
Wandering over from the science museum through the Roman ruins, we were ready to get our golf on and grab a drink.
We chose the junk yard course, which is bizarrely called Gary. There are nine holes and you weave around the cars, tyres and other junk to get your holes. It is really fun, but I do wish there were more holes for the price. And don’t get me started on the drinks!
Two Lime and Soda: £4.00!!
Two rounds of golf: £16.00
After the shock of the drinks, we decided to head to Frankie’s on Portland Street for some proper Manc food in the form of a vegan cheese toastie and a mug of hot Vimto.
Best laid plans…
To my utter disappointment, it turned out that we missed Frankie’s with it being a Sunday. So we had to go mooch for something to eat instead. Saved by the Manchester Markets, we managed to snaffle one each of (in our opinion) the best samosas in central Manchester and some freshly fried falafel. It filled the gap perfectly.
Four Falafels and Two Big Samosas: £4.00
Indulging in the Seven Sins
We didn’t quite go that far, but we did visit the new bar on the town, 7Sins, who luckily had Happy Hour on the cocktails. Having wanted to see inside since they set up a little while ago, it was the perfect opportunity and as the day was coming to a close, the change to sample an alcoholic beverage.
We opted for the Mango Coco Swizz, which is the most delicious flavour ever! It was made fresh, which can be a rarity in normal/chilled out bars and the staff were really knowledgeable about their drinks too – bonus for novice cocktail drinkers like us.
Two for one Cocktails: £8.00
Shrapnel time
After a quick tally we had around £5.00 left so were determined to make it stretch as far as we could. Our final destination of the day would be NQ64 where we would play as many of the vintage games as we could for a quid and then grab a souvenir of the day at The Manchester Shop, which we anticipated would bring us to £70.00.
Our game of choice had to be Crazy Taxi which we played oh too many times in the MMU union back when we were students. Oh and we didn’t have to pay for a token as we were lucky to be gifted one for our single game.
NQ64 Game: £0.00
To round off the day in pure Manc style, we bought a sew on patch for our memories blanket and with our final solitary pound we grabbed a bottle of Vimto – the deliciously fruity drink of the city.
Sew on Badge: £3.00
Bottle of Vimto: £1.00
Result!
Once we got started, the ideas began to flow and we really enjoyed visiting places we wouldn’t normally have seen. To have breakfast, lunch and a cocktail out, as well as seeing an exhibition, playing golf and visiting an arcade might be a bit much for us as a general rule, but we did have a very and I mean very fun day.
So much so that we are considering having a slightly smaller budget version later in the year. Being tourists in your own city certainly has it’s benefits as you feel as though you have had a holiday without the travel!
To check out more of our day, I made a micro vlog:
TOTAL SPEND: £70.00 (for two people)
Would you do the activities we chose?
Can you recommend something for our next fun day out in Manchester?
Let me know in the comments and we might just do them!
The spending money was gifted by Hotels.com, but all views are my own.