Discover North England

Music has played a significant role in the long, storied history of Manchester, England. The breeding ground of a wide range of artists, Manchester’s cultural reverberations have long been felt around the world.

The city’s musical cred stems in part from its impressive distinction as the birthplace of the punk rock movement (courtesy of hometown heroes the Sex Pistols and Joy Division) and its roots in disco (the Bee Gees grew up here) and alternative rock (Oasis, and its infamous brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher, got their start in the city).

Manchester is often called the world’s first industrial city, but today thriving shops, restaurants and bars have moved into all those now-empty warehouses. Old meets new in this vibrant English city where ornate neo-Gothic buildings from the Victorian era sit alongside contemporary glass and steel.

This unofficial Capital of the North, also known for those famous soccer teams and popular music scene, isn’t going to rival London’s size anytime soon, but that’s partly what makes it so appealing.

Manchester, the capital of northern England and the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, is a haven of cultural integration, but what I found in the city’s famous Chinatown was a unique combination of Chinese foods and cultural traditions with a northern-English twist.

Picture a street lined with Asian supermarkets, restaurants serving the best Chinese-meets-British food and a Paifang Chinese archway, and then add people speaking with a strong northern-English accent, and you’ll know you’ve arrived.