I'll be honest that Manchester is not a must go destination. I was nearby and had an extra day, so I went to check it out. It had a couple of non essential but decent enough museums, and an ok cathedral :) -

Given that trains were complicated and the Manchester Imperial War Museum North was inconvenient to get to via public transport, so I just took a direct uber there, Manchester is not too far. Because it was a day trip without a car, I had my luggage in tow, which made all museums uneasy, they are so scared about bombs and they don't care about profiling, everyone is a suspect. After looking at my luggage, they agreed to stash it during my visit, The museum was ok:

those small tethered blimbs were put over potential targets to entangle planes that might want to attack

It was a decent enoough museum, after I was done, I took another uber to the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry (click me). It was only ok given that its biggest hangar with planes was being renovated:

After that, like an idiot who can't plan, I totally spaced on the fact that there was a google office that I forgot to visit, oops, so instead I went to the cathedral before it closed, and caught the next hourly train to Liverpool:

After things were closing up in Manchester, took a direct train to Liverpool, just about 1h away