I turned twenty-four in March and celebrated in Manchester with two of my best friends. We’re a pretty organised bunch, so we’d already planned what we were doing each day and looked up a few bars and restaurants we may have wanted to visit.
My birthday landed on Easter, so luckily, we all had a four-day weekend. We’d booked to stay in an Airbnb for two nights based just outside Manchester in Chadderton as prices were hiked due to the long weekend. The Airbnb was lovely; we had secure parking and a good-sized apartment for the three of us. We paid about £45 each for two nights, which wasn’t bad at all. There was also a bus stop right outside the front door, and it took about 30 minutes to get into the centre.
On the first night, we’d booked to see Hairspray at The Opera House. It was an incredible show, I’d not seen the film or the production before but knew a little about the story. I would put it up there with being one of the best musicals I’ve seen! It’s so light-hearted and fun, with a great soundtrack. It put us into a really good mood after and we decided to head to Impossible for a few drinks afterwards. The décor was amazing, the walls were covered in old screen TV’s and plants, making it different to anywhere I’ve been before. When we first got to the bar, there was a grown man dressed as a gorilla shaking a cocktail stood on the bar! Throughout the night, we were welcomed by a few other characters; including an explorer eating a banana and chucking the skins into the crowd – a firm favourite!
The next day was my birthday and we’d planned to spend the day shopping, as a trip without a day shopping isn’t a real trip. Especially as the three of us are Primark obsessed, wherever we go, we must visit a Primark and Manchester’s Primark did not disappoint!
I’d seen The Living Room all over Facebook as they’re known for their Pornstar Martini trees, the décor of the place is beautiful and they had a good lunchtime deal on. So, we decided to book a table the day before, so we could ensure we had a place. Lunch was started with a birthday cocktail whilst we browsed through the menu, we all decided on a sandwich as we wanted to go for a proper evening meal later in the day. The food was amazing; I had a club sandwich and the three-tiered carb overload was needed! The meal probably cost us around £15 each which included the cocktails and we even managed to get a deal on the cocktails, which we were unaware of. We probably would have ordered another if we knew there was a deal on.
On the bus journey back to our Airbnb we were looking up where to eat that evening, we didn’t want to go to a chain restaurant as we wanted to try something that you couldn’t have elsewhere in the country. We all decided we fancied a good Italian; Trip Advisor had a few suggestions and after browsing through the menu’s we decided to go to Don Marco’s, we called up to make a reservation in case there would be no space that evening. The atmosphere in the restaurant was very cheery, the waiters were lovely and made our meal a pleasure. There wasn’t a great choice for drinks so we decided to share a bottle of Rose between the three of us. We decided to start with a garlic pizza bread, as you won’t find anyone more obsessed with garlic bread than us three! I decided to have a carbonara, which isn’t unusual for me along with a lot of Parmesan on top.
We were stuffed, but then suddenly all of the waiters were walking over to our table singing happy birthday with a candle stuck in a few profiteroles – I did want the ground to swallow me up at that point! They didn’t charge us for the profiteroles so we thought it was a really lovely gesture. After this we headed to the nearest Slug & Lettuce, who can refuse 241 cocktails?! I’d always wanted to try an Aperol Spritz so thought it was the right time. I have to say I wasn’t a fan of the drink, and felt slightly disappointed as I’d wanted to try it for so long. We’d had a pretty long day at this point, so we called it a day after the cocktails.
On the Sunday we didn’t have anything planned, with it being Easter Sunday we were aware that a lot of the shops would be closed. We knew we had a long travel home as Manchester is about a 3-4 hour journey from Bristol, so we decided to head for brunch before we headed back. Again, we didn’t want to head to a chain and we found Beastro whilst searching online, which is renowned for their incredible breakfast menu. We’d had a snoop on their Instagram and the food did not look disappointing! I went for a breakfast wrap and a latte – the whole menu was reasonably priced and we didn’t pay more than £10 each. They were celebrating their 1stBirthday and came around to give out some mini flapjack – another lovely touch!
Our weekend in Manchester was lovely, there was a lot we still wanted to do and I would definitely come back and recommend to everyone to visit. It’s such a vibrant city with lots going on, I’d like to visit the Warehouse Project and have a proper night out, visiting some more independent bars. I’d also like to visit Dirty Martini, scrolling through Instagram everyone has had a picture with the famous wings and I want to join them! I’d also like to visit 20 stories and see the amazing view over the city, might need to be a little more glam with Michelle Keegan and Charlotte Dawson being regulars. The weekend went way too fast for my liking, but then again, all weekends do!
