City Life
Lancaster is a compact, student-friendly city which has something for everyone. Lancaster 's historic buildings play host to a wide range of shops, restaurants, cafes and cultural facilities. With two universities based in the city, accommodation is plentiful and well priced. Popular student neighbourhoods include Moorlands, Bowerham (overlooked by the city's Williamson Park with its rolling lawns and woodland) and the city centre's modern student apartments like Cable Street and City Block.
The city's finest Georgian buildings are home to the arts: the quayside Maritime Museum, The Grand Theatre and the Storey Gallery. With the renowned Dukes adding contemporary theatre and art house cinema to the university's own Nuffield Theatre and Peter Scott Gallery, there's plenty for lovers of the arts to get their teeth into. Blockbusters are available too – at the multiplex Vue and on campus at the LU cinema.
If it's sports you're looking for, both the city and University boast a full range of facilities for indoor and outdoor sports – from archery to trampolining and football to volleyball. Or if you want to get your feet on the beach and just soak up the stunning sunsets hop on the bus to Morecambe Bay. (We should probably point out that there are quicksands around, so check before you wander off the beaten path!)
Eating, Drinking and Shopping
Lancaster is home to a variety of cuisine, including British, Chinese, French, Indian, Italian, Japanese, Spanish and Thai – to name a selection. After your meal you have the choice of many student-friendly or traditional venues: from the Students' Union's own Sugarhouse venue, via awarding winning Real Ale pubs, to the café-bar atmosphere of Church Street 's Eleven Bar and Mint.
Lancaster is also well known for its markets, such as the on-street Charter, Farmer's and Continental Markets. As well as the usual supermarket options Lancaster is also packed with independent clothes boutiques, specialist food stores and delicatessens such as Quite Simply Food on Moor Lane and Mung Mee Oriental Foods on Chapel Street.
With the city being in easy reach of a range of stunning urban and rural landscapes, you'll find that Lancaster is the ideal base for exploring the unspoilt, picture postcard vistas of the Lake District, the kiss-me-quick, down to earth entertainment offered by a day (or night) in Blackpool and Manchester's trend-setting Northern Quarter. With frequent rail links to all of these places, and more, it'll never take you long to find your Eden when you fancy a change of scenery.