The most beautiful library in the UK? It can’t be far away. Housed in a stunning Victorian Neo-Gothic building, the John Rylands Library is one of Manchester’s most famous attractions, a veritable nirvana of literature that is home to 300,000 printed volumes and more than a million archives and manuscripts, included a first edition of ‘Ulysses’ by James Joyce. The main reading room might just be the main event, a gorgeous hall that whisks the reader away from the hustle and bustle of Manchester and transports them into that most desired state, the absolute serenity of literature-inspired calm. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.