'Mamucium', the original name for Manchester may or may not derive from 'breast-like hill' (a nugget of etymological knowhow to keep stashed up your jumper). The city really steamed into life during the Industrial Revolution — in fact, it spearheaded the whole thing with its rampant textiles industry. Since then Manchester has become a byword for culture: a restless crucible of football, comedy, art, fashion and music — all swaddled in a blanket of rolling hills. If you don't enjoy your weekend away in Manchester, you've done something wrong.

Getting to Manchester

Direct trains run regularly between London and Manchester (usually between Euston and the centrally-located Manchester Piccadilly), the fast ones taking around two hours 10 minutes. Coaches are often a cheaper option, but take well over five hours each way.

Manchester need to know

• Bees: Giant bees hover on every bin, bus stop and cornice in Manchester — not some horrifying outbreak of GM insects, but Manchester's symbol of the industrious 'worker bee'. (You can also buy Manchester honey.)
• Getting around: There's no Underground in Manchester, but there is the Bee Network (see above for what we said about bees), an integrated bus and tram system that accepts contactless payments. (On Manchester trams, you touch in AND out.)
• Accommodation: No lack of flashy five star and boutique hotels around Manchester. The coolest places to stay are probably around the Northern Quarter/Ancoats — although everywhere's pretty walkable/tramable here. If you desire somewhere with a canal view, that's easily doable too.

• Football: So football's a bit of a thing in these parts — the two big cheeses are Man City (who play at the Etihad in the east) and Man United (who play at Old Trafford in the south-west). Just to make things more confusing, there's a separate cricket ground also called Old Trafford.
• Culture: One of the most cultured cities anywhere, Manchester and its environs have gifted us with The Royle Family, LS Lowry, Ian McKellen, Emmeline Pankhurst, Vimto (the drink) and Oasis (not the drink), to name a mere few.
• Rain: It rains so much up here, BC Camplight even wrote a sarcastic song about it. Take a raincoat. Maybe take a bucket.

Day one

Museums in Manchester

Right, let's get cultured shall we. While Londoners (and Londonist) blether on about all the marvellous free museums there are in the capital, other cities do have 'em — Manchester being a prime example. Institutions we'd highly recommend on a first visit are:

• Science and Industry Museum: Learn about the rise of Manchester as 'Cottonopolis' — the world's first industrial city — amid displays of spinning jennys, steam engines et al. [At time of writing some rooms are close for a refurb]
• People's History Museum: Manchester has a proud backstory of socialism, unions and protest — explored in this extensive museum, packed with posters and interactive bits and bobs.
• The Lowry: The Southbank Centre of Manchester Salford, the Lowry lays on theatre, food, festivals... you name it. First-timers will want to explore the free galleries here, featuring works by the eponymous artist.
• National Football Museum: A skilfully curated paean to footy, this museum is stuffed with paraphernalia — cups, shirts, programmes — and digs into the roots and social history of the Beautiful Game.

• Manchester Museum: Just as the British Museum isn't really about the history of Britain, so the Manchester Museum isn't really about Manchester. However, if mummies and dinosaurs are your bag, this place is a shoo-in.
• IWM North: The northern cousin of Lambeth's war museum, this iteration has a particularly memorable walk-through exhibit on WWI trenches.
• Museum of Transport: A little way out of town, this collection of local trams and buses (many of which you can climb aboard) is a real labour of love, and worth catching the tram to. One for anyone who goes weak at the knees at a vintage double-decker. Note: This a paid-for museum, but still cheap.

A spot of lunch

If you're looking for good lunch grub, Manchester has your back. Here are a few sandwich establishments/food halls we'd recommend for middle-of-the-day dining:

• Sandwiches: Manchester can cobble together a sandwich with the best of them — queues snaking outside the doors are the giveaway to a worthy vendor. Rustica on Hilton Street in the Northern Quarter is one such place (they do Milano sandwiches, Moroccan chicken, you name it), as is Fat Pat's, where locals queue down a shifty-looking back alley as if they're waiting to get their hands on a substance even more moreish than the Philly cheesesteaks being peddled. Owing to the queue at Fat Pat's, we opted for train sandwiches from Micky’s Real Nice Sandwiches; the OG Parm is exactly three million times better than anything you'll find in Pret. Find out more about Manchester sarnie scene here.
• Food halls/markets: Mackie Mayor in the Northern Quarter is a foodhall that Boxpark can only dream of being — a swishly converted chunk of the former Smithfield market, now dishing up lamb tonkotsus and craft cocktails like no one's business. We cannot recommend it enough. Hello Oriental market deals in exclusively-Asian goodies (bao buns, bahn mi, durian ice cream), just south of the Gay Village. Other places that lay on an above-average lunch options include GRUB in the Green Quarter, north of the city centre — and Escape to Freight Island, in the south-east of the city.

A night on the tiles

We've already mentioned Manchester's got more culture than an Actimel factory. For first-timers, here are a few suggestions for making the most of an evening out:

• Music: The fabled Hacienda may be long gone, but Manchester still throbs with live music: try a gig at the Castle Hotel paired with a pint of real ale; dance your socks off at a Sleaze night at the Deaf Institute, or soak up something at Band on the Wall. This is just the tip of the musical iceberg.
• Bongo's Bingo: The Liverpool-invented high-octane bingo night now plays regularly at Manchester's Albert Hall (which btw is another fine gig venue).
• High culture: Maxine Peake, Suranne Jones, Kevin Webster off of Coronation Street — many theatrical greats hail from Manchester, so it's little wonder it has such a rich theatre scene. If you go to just one theatre here though, we'd suggest the Royal Exchange, a round constructed inside a magnificent Victorian shopping centre.
• A bar crawl in the Northern Quarter: One of the best areas for going out in the country, Manchester's Northern Quarter will never fail you. It has cocktail bars, pubs, nightclubs — whatever your heart desires. Wherever you end up, wind up your night with a rice n' three.
• Canal Street: Manchester's Gay Village offers anything and everything for LGBTQ+visitors and allies.
• Comedy: If you're looking to laugh all the way into next week, check out one of Manchester's comedy clubs, in particular the Frog & Bucket in the Northern Quarter or A Lovely Time (the baby of Delightful Sausage's Chris Cantrell, and pal John Stansfield) in the Green Quarter.

Day two

Soak up some history and architecture

If you've not been to Manchester before, it may surprise you just how beautiful this city is; in particular its slew of old Victorian warehouses and factories are magnificent things, many of them inspired by 14th and 15th century Florence, Genoa and Venice.

A walking tour is never a bad idea (they run the gamut from pubs, canals, scran, ghosts, whatever you fancy). A couple of places that should be on everyone's itinerary:

• Manchester Town Hall is arguably the most stunning building in the city — it's designed by Alfred Waterhouse, the man behind London's Natural History Museum. For the time being, however, it's entirely under wraps thanks to extensive renovations. Sorry about that.
• John Rylands Library — the cathedralesque library built by a cotton mill owner — is one of THE sights of Manchester. It's free to visit, and even if you're in a rush, you can just pop your head in for 10 minutes. Believe us, it's worth it. Chetham's Library is the oldest public library in Britain, and very much worth visiting too.

Going for a drink

Thirsty? We have a few suggestions:

• Breweries: Superb modern breweries are dotted all over the city, but the best option for a crawl lies in the industrial estates in the east of the city, when you can pick up Cloudwater (the OG, and superior taproom), Track (massively impressed by their range of hoppy brews; they even serve free sparkling hop-infused water!), Sureshot, lager specialists Manchester Union Brewery, and ShinDigger.
• Traditional pubs: Again, you're utterly spoilt for choice. Our fave pub in the entire city is the Marble Arch (also home to the excellent Marble Beers brewery), a tiled gem, that physically slopes down towards the bar, propelling you to buy another pint. Other pubs that demand your attention include Peveril of the Peak (pea soup-tiled perfection), the Castle Hotel (real ale and live music) and Port Street Beer House. Even if you were drinking solidly for two days, you won't be ticking off all the city's best boozers in one go. Save some for a return visit.
• Sophisticated sips: Try the King Street Tavern for seasonal concoctions and a an array of dessert-themed cocktails (we're looking at you Eton Mess); the Daisy for French-inspired cocktails slouched back in a velvet sofa; and Speak in Code for ludicrously complex cocktails (including one made with shiitake mushroom and plant based butter washed Four Roses) in a darkened speakeasy vibe.

Munch your way down the Curry Mile

Manchester's Curry Mile, it pains us to say, is better than London's. There, we've said it. Hop on a bus in the city centre and in 10-15 minutes, the glittering lights of Rusholme hove into view, advertising their lip smacking array of juicy kebabs, spicy veggie stews, and so on, hailing from South Asia and the Middle East. As Londoners, we're not going to pretend we've noshed our way down the entirety of Wilmslow Road — that would take some time/packets of Rennie's. On our last visit, we tucked into the butter chicken, black daal and lush mango lassis at Mughli Charcoal Pit, and boy, was it good.

If you and your kin are hankering for a Chinese, the central Chinatown has you sorted. It's the second-largest in the country, after you-know-who's.

On the list for next time...

• Art galleries: The Lowry (mentioned above) is just the tip of the iceberg. Other arty offerings include Manchester Art Gallery, the Whitworth and Rogue Artists' Studios.
• The Coronation Street Experience: Bill Bryson was the unlikely champion of this behind-the-scenes soap tour, which leads you around the fabled Corrie cobbles, before taking you for selfies in the Rovers Return.
• Salford Lads and Girls Club: Speaking of photo ops. Smiths fans (as opposed to Morrissey fans, natch) might want to recreate that moment in 1985 when the group were snapped in the doorway of Salford Lads and Girls Club. As chance would have it, the venue's address is... Coronation Street.
• Stalybridge: 12 minutes out of Manchester Victoria on the train gets you to Stalybridge, where the wooded valleys of Stalybridge Country Park await. Or, venture no further than the train platform itself, for Stalybridge Buffet Bar, a haven of roaring coal fires, railwayana and real ale.
• Bury Market: Catch a tram to the end of the line, for Bury Market, and stock up on local cheese and famous Bury black pudding.
• Stockport: The town of Stockport is a spit from Manchester, and renowned for its Hat Works Museum. Fold in a tour of the historic Robinsons brewery, and you've easily got a day trip on your hands.
• Hathersage: Or anywhere in the Peak District, tbh, though this small village — a picturesque 55 minute train ride from Manchester Piccadilly — is one of our favourite entry points into the national park, for excellent country pubs, dramatically green hills and access to the craggy beauty of Stanage Edge.