Manchester - Myrna's Coronation and Another Reunion
A Royal Denouement
September 18-20, 2026
"The Rovers Return - But we've never been"
What We Knew Before We Left
We know we are giving ourselves the royal treatment after getting the prior 3 nights of 'free' Blue Rewards accommodations. We've booked a premium room with a city view at the Edwardian Manchester, YOLO. It's a bargain compared to our London digs and we probably will take advantage of this room a little more than in London since we may be a little travel weary. Maybe Manchester will surprise us with its charm.
The other thing we know is that on Saturday, we have the Coronation Street Experience booked. I am not a Corrie person, but Myrna has been watching for years although as the plots get more and more 'twisted', Myrna has hinted at abandoning it. I think this little excursion will rekindle the fire and she will continue watching till the end, whichever comes first IYKWIM.
What We Didn't Know
Other than the above, we know little of Manchester.
What We Know Now
The mystery was revealed in Aberdyfi. Our surprise visit to Miriam and Mark's was 50% complete as Mark was in Singapore. He is returning Saturday and they are flying to Paris on Monday morning. They will be in Manchester on Sunday. We extended our stay in Manchester so that we could meet up with them at some point.
Other than Saturday's Coronation Experience, Sunday is wide open, so we are up for anything. We only have one important thing on our agenda, meeting Miriam and Mark somewhere, Our prior three meetings were on the River Boat cruise (2011), Portugal (2017) and Ireland (2025).
We took our time to get to Manchester since we could only check in at 3pm. We stopped in Lytham for brunch after going through Blackpool one last time to see it in the daylight. Blackpool has gone through brighter days. The fact that it was cold and very windy didn't help our view of it. Blackpool is a little run down but I just had to see it for myself.
Saturday Update: The weather is not on our side as it is raining in Manchester. It is supposed to stop in a hour so we should get some sightseeing in before our Coronation Experience.
Sunday Update: The Coronation Street experience was really good. It lasted almost 2 1/2 hours and we got to meet one of the stars of the show. Tony Maudsley who plays the undertaker George Shuttleworth. At 6 foot 4 inches he had to bend down so we could all get in the picture.
If you are looking at pictures of Manchester you might find bees everywhere. The mass transit system here is called the Bee Network. Here is the reason. The bee is the symbol of Manchester and this city of industry is rightly proud of its link with the hard-working insect. In 1842, the early city fathers had to decide on a coat of arms that would tell the world who we were. It was a Victorian branding exercise. They included a globe with seven bees to show how we worked and traded across the seven seas. The Manchester bee was born of industry.
Manchester’s bee is a worker bee, reflecting a city made by the workers; made by
the people, not a city that has grown from royal patronage or easy natural
resources. Mancunians have worked hard to make this place thrive
Until We Meet Again
Well, we did get to meet Miriam and Mark before they headed to Paris. We had told them we would save them the trip into the city centre and that we would take the tram to meet somewhere closer to the airport where they were staying. We ended up in Chorlton less than 15 minutes by car from the airport. I chose a restaurant with 4.9 Google ratings that happened to be owned by Quebecers (who were not there that day). It was fine, but it didn't matter since we meeting our friends. We ended up talking for almost 3 hours before saying goodbye for the fourth time. It's always a sad goodbye as being that far apart, we never know when and if we will ever meet.
On the way back to the tram, I needed a pit stop, so we went into a local pub and it was packed with locals watching Fulham and Manchester United come to a 1-1 tie. We stayed for the entire game.
Now that we only have 1 night more before getting back to Heathrow, we still haven't decided where that halfway point will be. On the motorway, the trip is 200 miles and about 4 hours, but we won't be doing that since we have a one night stop somewhere.