Our UK trip was focused on the wedding of Chris and Sam. Chris had his stag do (bachelor party for the US readers) the weekend before the wedding and we timed our arrival so I could attend. I won’t cover any of the events that were organized by the best man but it was a bloody good time and being twice the age of the rest of the attendees might have been a touch tough, but I held my own. The whole thing was based up in Birmingham and that is the point of this post. It is a long time since I was last in Birmingham and even that was a brief visit. It is a city I didn’t know at all.
During the festivities, we were out and about in the center of Birmingham, and I was quite impressed by the buildings in the city both old and new. The following morning, after the crew had finished breakfast and before we needed to head home, I decided I was going to take a quick trip back around the surrounding area. Things were a lot quieter on Sunday morning than they had been on Saturday night when the place was absolutely buzzing.
There are lots of new buildings that have been developed while lots of the older buildings have been well maintained. There is also a lot of development along the canal with shops, bars and restaurants providing a ton of options for visitors and residents. There are several squares throughout the center with a variety of monuments and sculptures. One is in the process of being rebuilt and, while it was behind screens, it was possible to get the phone over the fencing to get some shots.
Overall, I was very pleasantly surprised by the center of Birmingham. When I was last there twenty odd years ago, I don’t remember it making any impression on me. Either I didn’t see the right parts or it has been improved a lot. Either way, it is really a pleasant city center and well worth a visit.
The tram system in Birmingham was built after I had last been there. We were staying in the center of the city so I didn’t need to use it to get anywhere but our route from the hotel to the evening’s entertainment took as past some of the route. I noted this for the following morning when I took a little stroll around the city which was much quieter on a Sunday morning than it had been on a Saturday night. The tram service was clearly less frequent too. However, I did see some of them come through and wasn’t going to miss a quick shot while I was at it!