A Day in Birmingham

Birmingham was a way-stop for me after seeing family in England before going to Croatia. It’s the second biggest city in the UK and while I’m not keen on big cities, it was well worth the visit.

There is no way you could ever explore Birmingham in a single day. I only had a few hours between my train and my bus to London. I chose to use the time to see the Birmingham cathedral, visit the museum, get some good photographs and have a bite to eat. It hardly made me an expert on the city, but it did make me aware that Birmingham is worth exploring.

The museum is quite impressive. There are many exhibits; so many that I was kicked out at closing time before I could see them all. I particularly enjoyed seeing the Staffordshire Hoard on display. This is the largest Anglo-Saxon collection of silver and gold artifacts ever unearthed, comprising over 3500 pieces. There was a lot of information available, as any good exhibit should provide. Unfortunately I spent too much time exploring the exhibit and didn’t have time for more of the museum. But don’t forget, all museums in the UK are free. So I’m getting to as many as I can before I get to the expensive museums on the European mainland.

I then went to get a bite to eat before my bus ride. Randomly, the curator from the museum that I met happened to ride by me on their bike and say hi. Small world.

Then it was to the bus station (or rather curbside thanks to Megabus) to go to London. I’ll include it in my post about London, but the only other interesting thing that happened that day was not only did my bus arrive late, but it made an hour detour to salvage the passengers of another Megabus which had broken down. So I arrived in London an hour and half late…and the rest will have to wait for my next post.

I will say that I do need to go back to Birmingham someday and explore the rest of the rather large city. And if you are planning to go, don’t breeze through it like I did.