I’ve written about the Manchester Christmas Markets before and I’ve always claimed they are the best Christmas Markets in the country. Ok, I’ve not been to them all, but I’ve been to enough to call it.
I didn’t get to go last year, because Covid, so was extra excited about them this year, especially as I was going to be taking a friend who had never been to them before. Of course, I was a little concerned they might not live up to my usual expectations, after all there’s the Brexit effect to be considered as well as the Covid effect, but I still held out a lot of hope. So, did they excite and delight? Or were they more of a damp squid?
Well, as it turned out ‘damp’ was a good description. Nothing to do with the markets per se (or squids for that matter), but Manchester got one of those really steady, non-stop, rainy days people from elsewhere think we have all the time (we don’t, the sun shines on at least 3 days a year).
We got the tram into town and made a dash, not for the markets, but for the Piccadilly Hotel just opposite the tram stop. This is a Mercure Hotel now, but was always known as Piccadilly Plaza when I was growing up. The Plaza complex consists of a 30 storey business tower as well as the somewhat shorter hotel and was Manchester’s first skyscraper when it was completed back in 1965. It’s always had a personal significance for me because, as well as it being a rather nice place inside and an important local landmark on the outside, it’s my dad’s hotel.
Maybe I should explain that, in case you’re now thinking I’m from a super rich family and my dad owns the Mercure Hotel chain. He doesn’t. But he did build the hotel. Not single-handedly of course, but he was the man working on the tower crane without which there would have been no skyscraper and no landmark. It was actually the job he came to Manchester to do when he got married and so to him the tower didn’t just mark a job well done, but an important time in his life.
I took Lou up to the restaurant floor, which unfortunately isn’t very high but still gives a decent view out across Piccadilly Gardens. It’s a nice space and was perfect for enjoying a coffee whilst we dried out from our 30 second dash from the tram stop and waited for the rain to stop. (Spoiler alert: it didn’t)
As we chatted and enjoyed our coffee and took pictures of the Christmas market below from the luxury of the warm, dry indoors, we commented on how nice it is to be able to walk into a hotel for coffee rather than queuing up at Costa. It’s something we would never have thought of doing when we were younger (and poorer). It’s not something I’m in the habit of doing now, but I’ve realised it’s a habit I’d like to develop.
Eventually we thought we’d have to brave the rain and so piled our waterproofs on and headed outside. First up was ‘The Winter Garden’. This has been promoted as a magical place like no other and an Alpine village. It’s a new addition to the markets this year, supposedly because the main market in Albert Square isn’t on because of the building work currently going on to renovate the adjacent town hall. I was keen to explore it and thought it might be a good place to get lunch. I always get the Southern German speciality, spätzle at the Christmas Markets as they’re the only place I know to get it outside of Germany. So where better to get some than an Alpine Village?
They didn’t have any.
None of the food looked that exciting and food stalls seemed to be all there were. As we didn’t particularly want to stand in the rain eating something boring we headed indoors to the Arndale Centre instead and got some lunch in the regular (dry, indoor, with seating) food market there instead.
We then braved the rain again to wander round the rest of the markets. Even though I’d had lunch I still would have bought spätzle if I’d found some.
I didn’t find any.
We didn’t actually find anything we wanted to buy at all, food or otherwise.
Thoroughly soggy we ended our tour of the markets at St Peter’s Square where we could get the tram home. But before getting the tram we decided to finish the day as we’d started and go to a posh hotel.
We went into the Midland (apparently where Mr Rolls met Mr Royce) and ordered coffees with a slug of alcohol to warm us up. It was so nice we decided to stay a bit longer and explore the cocktail menu.
Feeling much better by the time we went back outside and spotting some light installations by the tram stop we actually missed our tram as we were too busy having fun taking selfies in amongst the installations.
Fortunately the trams are quite frequent. Or maybe that should be unfortunately as we didn’t have an excuse to go back into the nice hotel to explore more of the cocktail menu.
So what are my thoughts on the Manchester Christmas Markets and the Covid effect?
The rain really didn’t help. The best part about the markets isn’t just wandering around, but standing about with yummy food and a cup of Glühwein, chatting to random people and just generally being sociable. The rain made that pretty much impossible, but even if it hadn’t been raining I think we’d have been too conscious of social distancing to be as sociable as usual.
The markets were quite busy but nowhere nearly as busy as usual. The upside to this was that it was easier to see what the stalls were selling and, had we wanted to eat and drink, we wouldn’t have needed to queue for long. Whether it was just the rain putting people off or if the reduced numbers were more to do with Covid and people avoiding busy places, I don’t know. Stallholders have been complaining about not making much money this year though, so maybe it’s more of a Covid effect. (You can read an article about this here and a slightly more positive one here.)
The stalls are usually run by people from all over Europe and have a lot of different things. There just wasn’t the variety this year. This could have been a Covid effect – travel has become so difficult and expensive, but could also be a Brexit effect. I’d assume the people who travel around Europe all year selling their wares at markets in different countries will now need work visas for the UK and as work visas are not easy to come by, unless they can get some special kind of Christmas Market visa, then the diminished diversity of the markets could be something that continues post-Covid.
All in all, I was pretty disappointed with the Manchester Christmas Markets this year and I felt it was a shame that this was the year that Lou got introduced to them. I’ll give them another chance next year and hopefully they’ll more like they usually are.
In the meantime though, I’m definitely going to have ‘developing a posh hotel coffee habit’ as one of my 2022 New Year resolutions.
Did you get to visit any Christmas Markets this year? Do you think Covid made a difference to them? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
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