Checked out of our Carlisle B&B at 9.45am and began our drive to Manchester. We had planned to stop off at Brougham Castle near Penrith and Sizergh Castle near Kendal on the way but there were no signs for turn offs from the M6 so we had to give them a miss.

We arrived at our hotel, Dolby Hotel, at 12 noon but were told our room was not available until 2.30pm. We walked 5 minutes into the city and had lunch at KFC in the Arndale Centre then headed to the tourist information centre to book our tour of Old Trafford, the home of Manchester United. We booked in for 10.20am tomorrow and found out that the only real sights in town were art galleries and museums...not our thing. We also found out Oasis were playing a concert at the Lancashire Cricket Ground in the evening which explained the crowds of 20-30 year olds wandering around our hotel.

We walked over the road from tourist information to Manchester Art Gallery for a quick look, free admission. This filled in about 20 minutes and we began our walk back to the hotel at 2.30pm. We stopped at an internet cafe to read and send some emails then at the Market Street Metro stop to see which train we would catch out to Old Trafford in the morning.

Got back to the hotel at 3pm and checked in and, as was their way, we paid up front before going to our room for a rest. We found out that the bar had Sky Sports on so we went down for a drink and to watch the soccer on TV, Tottenham vs West Ham. A few groups waiting to go to the Oasis concert drifted in and out including a West Ham fan who arrived just in time to see West Ham go 3-0 down...lots of swearing!

Back to the room after game, grabbed our jumpers and headed out for dinner. We ate at Pizzeria Italia which wasn't bad but very hard to try and pay so you could leave..a problem we encountered a lot on our trip !