Seville is a very civilised, beautiful and buzzing City. Small and perfectly formed.
Brighton is great for a drinking dancing shopping seeing the sea place.
Or how about flying to Majorca and getting a smart little train to Soller/Port Soller. It's a lovely little village and a nice little beach town. Best of both worlds.
http://www.sollernet.com/indexen.html
Or a hassle free flight from MAN to Perpignan then a great drive down to Collioure which is a cracking town with lots of arty types, music and good food and booze (a bit expensive though)
http://www.collioure.com/gb/index-gb.htm