Ending up in Birmingham
Together with a couple of colleagues I had an interesting meeting with a vendor in Coventry. We had flown to Birmingham with the morning flight and arrived in rain. After the meeting with the vendor was finish they asked us what we were going to do the rest of the afternoon since we had 4 hours to our flight back to Brussels. I said that we were going to visit Brimingham.
Birmingham!! They said; what are you going to do in Birmingham??
I said I don’t know but I had read somewhere that they had improved the city image with some new architecture.
With this comment from them standing we left for Birmingham! We followed the GPS to the city centre driving in the rush hour.
We walked up and down some of the shopping streets enjoying some of the design; especially the striking Selfridges building. The buildings three-dimensionally curvaceous form hugs the dramatic incline of the redeveloped bull ring site as it moves like a shimmering silver wave and drops down to St Martin´s square below.
After viewing this amazing building we walked back towards High Street in order to find the cathedral. When we walked up Temple Street in order to reach the cathedral we were met by hordes of men in suits and office dressed women emptying all the surrounding offices and running towards the nearby train station. I just had to take some pictures to see if I could catch the lemmings following the same path; it was monstrous.
The cathedral was a lot smaller than what we all had anticipated, but next to it we found the pub named; Fullers Ale & Pie. This was a beautiful place with a good atmosphere and a good choice or beer. We tasted some of the beers but quickly found them far from the standards in Belgium. I had some beers from bottles which tasted quiet nice.
As soon you have passed this part the rest is easy. Finding the area for the rental cars was very easy and no problem at all, especially compared to many other airports. The cars were situated very close to the arrival area. The prices were fair and not too high, even for larger cars. One thing I found missing here compared to other places where mainland Europeans rents cars in Great Britain was that there were no reminders of the left side driving in the car.
Delivering the car was just as easy with good indication on where to deliver it. Check of the car went fast too. Only minus here was the distance from here to the airport which would have had an influence if it was raining.
All in all; a good place to rent cars.
