Car Hire Manchester - Mini guide to Manchester

With 100,000 residents, Manchester in New Hampshire is northern New England's largest city, and it has a grittier, more urban feel than anywhere else in the three states. It's a good place for gathering supplies, visiting the fine art museum and, most of all, getting a glimpse of the region's proud industrial heritage.

One of northern New England's premier art museums and the city’s principal attraction, the Currier Gallery of Art, is housed in an elegant and classical 1932 Beaux-Arts building. Permanent collections include some 12,000 works of European and American art and sculpture, with fine pieces by Picasso and Monet as well as fine exhibits of silver, glass, furniture and pewter.

The Zimmerman House, designed by iconoclastic architect Frank Lloyd Wright and built in a Manchester residential neighbourhood in 1950, is the only Lloyd Wright house open to the public in the New England region. The compact, useful, elegant and inexpensive-to-build house boasts striking features, such as Georgia cypress trim and red-glazed brick. Even the furniture and gardens were designed by Lloyd Wright.

Visitors reach the house from the Currier Gallery by shuttle. There are two tour lengths and advance reservations are required. Farther down Heather Street, a few houses to the west, is another Lloyd Wright house which is privately owned but can be viewed from the curb.

The fascinating Millyard Museum is located in one of Manchester's brick behemoths, at the corner of Commercial and Pleasant streets. Situated right in the heart of the mill district, the museum traces the history of the region from a Native American fishing spot 11,000 years ago to its role as a magnet for immigrants coming to work the mills. There are also many good restaurants in this area.