Birmingham

[DAS]

Anyone know anything interesting about Birmingham?

I have to spend a day there next week which also means an overnight stay. Is Birmingham the kind of place I should get the first train out? Or is it worth sticking around for a couple of hours to have a walk round while I'm there? I am fairly centrally based, on Broad Street actually, so does anybody have any supertips for the place we love to call, well, Birmingham?

[Nini]

I'd usually ask our resident Brum denizen beep but to be honest I'd be better off asking a vagrant who's never been there.

[Beep]

Thanks Nini.

You'll be ok if you stick to the city centre. It is worth having a look around. Avoid the Mailbox in a car.
Avoid suburbs (more on those later). Look at Bullring, take a look at Gas Street (Go to legs 11) and if you have time get into thinktank.

SUBURBS. AVOID LIKE PLAUGE! (Unless you have a knife fetish)
Unless you have the following items.
1. A CO19 Loadout.
2. Armed Support
3. A Ballistic Vest/Helmet
and a Decent getaway car.

[Nini]

OK, mentally deranged vagrant who reckons he might have been there once.

[stu]

Speaking as a badge wearing Birmingham fanatic, it's easy enough to spend a whole day there. In no order: Have fun idly walking round the office filled streets. Pop to the mailbox and the various malls dotted about. Play the how does the pallasades join onto bullring game. Stare at BT tower. The old fashioned arcade is mavellous near snow hill station. Cry at where the old museum was. Go up Broad Street and turn off every so often for some plazas. Walk up the canals a bit. Go into an office and say "Texas Rangers, package for ya!". Walk through the library and marvel at it's weirdness. Go to the free museums. Everything is easy to walk to from New St which is also worth hanging around a bit wishing the flapping departure boards were still there.

[marksi]

On the basis of the information provided here I'm very surprised that the travel writers of the world haven't been recommending it as an alternative to New York or Sydney.

[Gavin Scott]

I would only go there if I could meet tvmercia, and Dan - if I got the timing right.

Otherwise I would not.

[Cache]

Stick around, for definite.

If you do stay over, I recommend NiteNite (google it), just a short walk from the Mailbox and City Centre, but cheap, and very comfortable.
Then, check out the Mailbox (BBC worth a little look), the Bullring for retail therapy and take a walk on the Canals near the NIA and ICC, lots of nice cafe-bars and restaurants.
Just, as said, avoid the suburbs, unless you want to get knifed or mugged.

[Nick Harvey]

What a timely thread!

I've just got back from there, actually.

A morning in sunny Bordesley Green. It was wonderful.

[fusionlad]

It looks awful from the lines in and out of New Street.

But I've been to the centre a few times, and it seems a vibrant, mostly modern city.

[Beep]

What a timely thread!

I've just got back from there, actually.

A morning in sunny Bordesley Green. It was wonderful.

I live just south of there, count yourself lucky that you are still alive.