Guy Dickinson

One of the nicest places to grab a beer or coffee, read the paper (or snarf the free wifi) and take in the relaxed crowd. Food’s not bad either. Gets very crowded, so if you want to slump on a seat – get in early.

I agree with the others, Gum is just a standard collection of shops, but it’s worth popping in after you’ve seen Red Square, because they have a (deliberately kept) flock of birds (Starlings?) flying around inside the glass roof. That was quite a bizarre sight.

It’s an important, and pretty moving place. As someone else has mentioned, it’s got a pretty impressive ‘full immersion’ audio/visual exhibit that takes over the whole interior every 30 minutes…

However, the building is the real star. Manchester has got some fantastic Victorian architecture, some pretty shitty 70’s buildings and lately (post 2000), some truly awful ‘architect-less’ residential buildings by opportunist property developers.

So it’s fantastic that we’ve got a real modern classic – the interior treatment is as interesting as the external…get and see it.

For what it’s worth, I think the Lowry centre opposite is appalling, but it’s got a fabulous, chidlike interior (clashing purples and oranges, stairs popping out of walls etc.

Amazing…will probably need 3 visits to grasp the sheer amount of stuff to see.
Logistics:
Great tip from the Time Out guide – avoid the huge queues at the main glass entrance and walk across the open area towards the central ‘mini ac de triomphe’ shaped thing – just before and to the side of the arch, there’s another entrance (Port D’Orleans, I think) that is a stairway down and there was only a small queue to get tickets. Which I didn’t need to buy, because it’s free on the 1st Sunday of the month :-)
Art:
Crikey. I only managed the Italian Masters, some sculpture and a bit of a wander…the usual suspects (mona lisa, venus de milo) were very crowded, and somewhat underwhelming in the company of titian, botticelli etc.
They’ve manged to recreate some Italian frescoes directly into walls, which is rather a nice touch.

...and you’ll see an amazing, self sufficient community and some excellent architecture using natural materials…best bet is to ride a bike around the lake are to see cool houses with grass roofs and some ingenious and beautiful design solutions.

Went in November 2002 (very bloody cold), but the people are warm and friendly. Except the police – I got detained for taking a photo of the architecture in the metro system!

There’s a fantastic communist era kind of theme park in the suburbs (can’t remember the name – it’s right next to the space museum) that is absolutely incredible…stunning vistas, with fading buildings that celebrate soviet achievements in agriculture, technology etc. We spent half a day wandering around…

Oh and the ‘taxi’ system is fantastic – there aren’t any real taxis – just stick your arm out and a private car will pull over and take you any where for a few (100?) rubles. Just don’t try and fasten a seatbelt – they’ll laugh at you for being such a wimp!