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The Metrolink extension to Salford Quays provides easy access to one of the city's first urban development projects. For ninety years, from 1894 when the Manchester Ship Canal opened, the Salford docks turned the city into one of Britain's busiest ports. Trade declined in the 1970s and the docks eventually closed in 1982, since which time the Salford Quays development has transformed the run-down quays on the western edge of the city centre into a waterfront residential and leisure complex. Various Metrolink stations serve the area: for the Salford Quays tourist information office (Mon-Fri 8.30am-4.30pm, Sun 10am-4pm; tel 0161/848 8601) get off at Salford Quays station. You can pick up a map here and wander down the Centenary Walkway quayside, which ends at The Lowry (daily from 9.30am; free), the Quays' shining steel arts centre whose theatres, galleries (Mon-Wed & Sun 11am-5pm, Thurs-Sat 11am-8pm; free) and creative ArtWorks exhibition (Mon-Fri 10am-3pm, Sat & Sun 10am-4pm; GBP3.75) have quickly become one of Manchester's leading attractions; to travel straight here, stay on the Metrolink until Broadway. The centre, of course, takes its name from L.S. Lowry and no artist is more closely linked with an English city than Lowry is with Manchester - there's always a selection of Lowry works here on show for free. A footbridge runs from The Lowry across to the Trafford side of the docks where rises the Imperial War Museum North ( ), which recently re-opened. This, too, is a dramatic structure, whose three "shards" of fractured steel represent the world's conflicts on land, sea and in the air. It's as resonant in its way as the other great building which looms in the near distance, Old Trafford , the self-styled "Theatre of Dreams" and home of Manchester United, arguably the most famous team in the world. Tours of Old Trafford and its museum (daily 9.30am-5pm; GBP8.50; museum only GBP5.50; advance booking essential, tel 0161/877 8631, ) placate out-of-town fans who want to gawp at the silverware, sit in the dug-out and visit the Red Cafe . To get here, take the Metrolink to Old Trafford station and walk up Warwick Road to Sir Matt Busby Way.
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