Day Trips from Manchester

In Brief. In the suburbs of Blackpool, Blackpool Zoo  hosts a wide variety of animals, large and small, from air, land and sea, from across the globe. Not as vast as Chester Zoo , there is still a lot to see. Although the map says there are Aardvarks and Zebras, as suggested by the title, in fact my alphabetical range was from Alpacas to Wolves, so even though I was trying to be thorough, I certainly didn't see everything. You can get close to some marsupials in the Wallaby Walkabout What's Here? I guess that Blackpool Zoo provides the sort of experience that one expects from a modern Zoo. Clutching a map, there is the chance to seek out a variety of habitats round winding paths, such as Gorilla Island, Big Cat Habitat, Lemur Wood and Wallaby Walkabout.  You can enter the same space as the animals in the last two of these, though unsurprisingly not in the first two.   As you wander around, there are a few key facts provided on each of the species encountered, along the lines of

In Brief. Port Sunlight is a model village, built from 1888, to house the workers at Lever Brothers soap factory, now part of the multinational Unilever. The village includes small blocks of worker's cottages in a variety of architectural styles, alongside a range of open spaces, a museum and the Lady Lever Art Gallery , adjacent to a substantial soap factory. Walking tours provide an interesting overview of the history of the site, there is an informative museum and the art gallery exceeded my expectations. The Lady Lever Art Gallery from the slightly out-of-season rose garden. What's Here? My visit started with a successful tea and cake in the Art Gallery's basement cafe, and continued with a wander sround the gallery. The gallery has a grand main hall, lit from above, and a collection of themed rooms. The themed rooms include Wedgwood and Chinese ceramics, tapestries and a series of rooms that combine art, decor and furniture to reflect a period or style. There is also