During the day there are six trains an hour into the city centre and up to four through the night. Trains run to Manchester Piccadilly rail station and take 15-20 minutes.

www.manchesterairport.co.uk/

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How much boutique hotel style can you take? Choose either 11 Didsbury Park or Didsbury House, two cool as can be Victorian villas in Manchester’s Hampstead. Essential trimmings include side-by-side baths and polished floors. Room prices from £135 to £300. The same company also runs the Great John Street Hotel, converted from an old school in the city centre. “New York loft meets vintage chic”, they say. All this and a hot tub too. From £235 to £750.

11 Didsbury Park, Didsbury Village; Tel: 0161 448 7711; Didsbury House Hotel, Didsbury Park, Didsbury Village; Tel: 0161 448 2200; www.eclectic-hotel-collection.com

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Grand listed building from Manchester’s golden age. Inside, sophisticated comfort with much-lauded beds and heated mirrors (for shavers who steam up?). From £101 a night.

18-24 Princess Street (on the edge of China Town); Tel: 0161 236 8999

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Cheery floral pub close to the Museum of Science And Industry. Nine comfortable en-suite rooms from £44.95. A snip in the heart of the city.

71 Liverpool Road, Castlefield; Tel: 0161 839 7740; www.theox.co.uk/

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On top of Manchester’s museum of the city: elegant building, great panorama. French-ish, but with local delights including Lancashire hotpot and steak and kidney pie.

Levels 5 & 6 Urbis, Cathedral Gardens; Tel: 0161605 8282

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Stylish (lots of wood and straight edges) Italian offering a range from fine pizzas to fancy fish. In the heart of the city centre so usually crowded, buzzing and friendly.

8 Clarence Street; 0161 835 9860

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Harrison Birtwistle, Alexander Goehr and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Master of the Queen’s Music, all trained together in Manchester. Maxwell Davies has written five pieces about his home town of Salford.

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Most interesting book on Manchester. Richard Francis’s biography of Ann Lee, the female messiah who was thrown out of Manchester Cathedral and became leader of the Shakers.

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Take your pick from Jeff Noon, Anthony Burgess, Nicholas Blincoe, Howard Jacobson. And for the suburbs (especially Stockport) Stevie Davies and Richard Francis. And don’t forget Mrs Gaskell and Howard Spring, whose Fame Is The Spur may not be great art but it begins in Manchester with the Peterloo massacre and keeps going at a gallop.

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Most infuriating book on Manchester. How the Industrial Revolution paved the way for the Haçienda and all that. Opinionated, tunnel-visioned but a good read.

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OK, so it’s set in next-door Salford but its full of grim-up-north grit which still lingers, despite the Manchester makeover. Or Raining Stones, Ken Loach’s sad story of a communion dress; set in Middleton, a world away from loft apartments and designer bars.

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Escaping the crowds is easy. Head east to the Pennines, pull on a pair of boots and keep walking into a moorland wilderness.

www.northpennines.org.uk/

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Keep your kids happy in the interactive gallery at Manchester Art Gallery. Buttons to press, things to do, clothes to dress up in. Take the portrait challenge: can you sit still while the woman in the picture twitches, smiles and burps?

Mosley Street; Tel: 0161 235 8888; www.manchestergalleries.org/

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Has to be a tram. Ride with a rumble and a hoot from St Peter’s Square, up the slope by the G-Mex exhibition centre and on to the Lowry cultural centre by the Manchester ship canal in Salford. Cross over to Daniel Libeskind’s Imperial War Museum North and then ride back.

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As yet not too tarted up. Home to Asian rag trade wholesalers, new media entrepreneurs, a craft centre in an old market and the cool Chinese Arts Centre. And all the clothes, crystals and junk you could want in Affleck’s Palace.

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Newly created tranquil haven bounded by the cathedral, Chetham’s school of music and Urbis, a striking new blue glass ski-slope housing Manchester’s museum of the city. Ideal for a lunchtime sandwich and a good book. Further out: Fletcher Moss Gardens in Didsbury, famed for rare and unusual plants.

Manchester Cathedral, Cathedral Yard, M3 1SX; manchestercathedral.org/

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A choice of a thousand vindaloos and birianis on the curry mile in Rusholme. Unlikely to be followed by Manchester tart, a melange of shortcrust pastry, raspberry jam, coconut and custard. But you can always make it yourself.

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On wilder Friday or Saturday nights, you can find 'love' in pretty well any doorway on Deansgate. Those intent on romance rather than lust may prefer to stroll hand in hand on canal towpaths at Castlefield, lingering on an elegant bridge as trams rumble serenely by.

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A high-gabled, utterly original masterpiece on the delightfully named Daisy Bank Road, just south of the city centre. Built in 1903 to designs by Manchester architect Edgar Wood and raved over by Nikolaus Pevsner. Bit of arts and crafts movement, hint of art nouveau, lots of anticipation of German expressionism.

Daisy Bank Road

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Bring back any one of photographer Len Grant’s books charting the renaissance of Manchester over the last 15 years. Or a tin of Uncle Joe’s mintballs.

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