Famed Famed for football, music and distinctive haircuts, Manchester has left an indelible mark on the world. England's "Capital of the North", this once industrial city is now perhaps the UK's most vibrant, and in recent years its progressive attitude and thriving street culture has proved a magnet for a new breed of youthful, international resident.

While one of the country's largest metropolises, its relatively condensed urban core is a coup for visitors, with distinctive neighbourhoods jostling for supremacy beside one another, but easily navigable on foot.

The cobbled streets of the Northern Quarter and the budding Ancoats districts are a cosseted world of cool cafés, independent shops and diverse drinking dens. Break out from this hipster haven, however, and there's the neon-lit Chinatown, with its authentic dim-sum restaurants and karaoke bars; the glossy boutiques and cocktail bars of Spinningfields, flanked by contemporary skyscrapers; and an abundance of sweeping city-centre squares bordered by art galleries and imposing neo-gothic architecture.

George Orwell may have described Manchester as the "belly and guts of the nation", but with a warm people and an open character, it may just be its heart as well.