Manchester

After our short trip in Lake District we jumped on the train to Manchester,

which is about 1hr train ride from Oxenholme Station.

We arrived around 7 o'clock and had to rush to check-in at our hotel, as 

we had dinner plans. We stayed at the Radisson Blu Edwardian, which is a 
5star property, really nice as you would expect from any Radisson hotel, 
but not my favourite hotel in Manchester.

We got ready and jumped into a cab and headed to our dinner location, 

which was slightly outside the city centre and more towards one of 
the football arenas. The restaurant is called Vermilion, but they also have 
a really popular bar upstairs called Cinnabar which is a really good party 
place during weekends. The Restaurant serve thai fusion cuisine and really 
good cocktails too. This place was really funky and trendy, really enjoyed 
the food but also the atmosphere, would definitely go back!

After dinner we went back to the hotel to have a good nights sleep, as 
we had to get up fairly early to enjoy the city and squeeze in some 
shopping time!

In the morning we enjoyed some English breakfast and then checked out 
and checked in next door at The Midland Hotel, a 4star property which is 
very grand and elegant, I really like this hotel!

We visited almost all shopping areas in the city centre including Harvey 
Nics and Selfridges, it's always nice to come outside London and see 
the shopping scene in other cities. We also stopped for a quick lunch at 
Pizza Express and then continued our browsing, hotel inspections 
and sightseeing mission..

We had to head back to the hotel and get ready quite early as we again 
had dinner plans, this time at the restaurant called Mr Coopers House & 
Garden by Simon Rogan, really popular and well-known restaurant at 
The Midland Hotel. The atmosphere in the restaurant is really tanquil 
because it's like dining in your own garden, so relaxing, but except that, 
the food was outstanding! Both me and my colleague went for fish, it was 
really good!

After dinner we had plans to enjoy some cocktails at Cloud 23 at 
the Hilton Deansgate Hotel, really nice place with amazing views 
over Manchester. I must say this is one of my favourite hotels in Manchester.
Cloud 23 is a very popular and busy place during weekends,
therefore I recommend guestlist booking, to avoid disappointment,
 otherwise you need to join the queue, which at times can be quite 
long and they wont let people in if it's full already, so then you need to 
wait for someone to leave.

Next morning we had a nice breakfast at the Midland Hotel and then
we headed out to Intu Trafford Centre, this is a large indoor shopping 
centre and leisure complex, it's really big and full of shops and leisure 
activities. We first went to Sea Life, to see some fish :) and thereafter 
checking the shopping centre itself. The palm trees at the shopping 
centre made me feel like I was in a country outside UK. We spent a few 
hours there and then we had to go for a inspection at another hotel, 
The Lowry, a 5star hotel, this is a really amazing hotel just as you would 
expect from the Rocco Forte brand, everything felt like 5star standard 
within the property, from the rooms to the service. We had a cocktail and 
some snacks here, before heading back to our hotel to get ready for 
another dinner meeting, this time with our contacts from QHOTELS.

The next morning we started ur study trip travelling from Manchester
stopping at various locations and ended up at Chesford Grange where we 
had dinner and overnight.

The next morning we were back in the minibus for the last day of the trip,
again travelling through various locations with the last stop in Oxford before
being dropped of in London. We were really tired after 5 days of constant
travelling, so it felt really good to be back in London, only thing was that
I had 2 days in the office to catch up and then I was back travelling again..