Manchester

Cityscape

Red-brick Victoriana

City life

Music, football, fashion

Mancunians may be too down-to-earth to say it themselves, but the capital of the northwest has come over all Manhattanchester.

You’re now as likely to come across loft-dwellers quaffing mojitos as you are flat-capped tradesmen nursing pints of Newton & Ridley ale in the Rover's. For the cosmopolitan weekender – wanting to cheer on the Reds at Old Trafford, shop for denim on Tib Street, dine in a converted cotton warehouse and bar-hop in the Northern Quarter – Manchester is as vibrant and immediate as any European capital. The Industrial Revolution has been succeeded by a Residential Revolution, with grand old mills and factories now housing apartments, restaurants and bars, and elegant new glass and steel inventions transforming the landscape by the week. From the waterfront bars of Castlefield to the energy of the Gay Village and the boho chic of the Northern Quarter, the city centre is as neat and tight as a pass from Ryan Giggs. And the superb shopping goes some way to explaining why northwestern lads and lasses look as fine as they do.