My in-laws came to visit us in the UK for a couple of weeks over Christmas and New Year. A month or two beforehand we discovered that they were interested in visiting some European Christmas markets at some point in the future.
We tried to make that happen this trip by popping over to France or Germany, but it was fairly late in the game and all good accommodation options were already booked up. As an alternative, we looked into the best Christmas markets in the UK and discovered that Birmingham is home to the largest German Christmas market outside of Germany and Austria.
We therefore planned a two night stay there on our drive up from Heathrow to our home, but kept it a secret so that we could surprise them. Completely coincidentally, after we’d booked our Birmingham hotel they shared that they were interested in visiting Birmingham because they’d gotten into the Peaky Blinders series and that’s where it’s both set and filmed. That gave us even more fun stuff to do, so here’s a recap of what we got up to that weekend in case it inspires your own trip to the West Midlands.
Where we stayed in Birmingham
We stayed both nights at the Hyatt Regency Birmingham which, at the time of our stay, was a category 3 property.
I had a couple of category 1-4 free night certificates due to expire within a couple of months, so we redeemed those for one of the rooms. For the other room, we redeemed points and used a Suite Upgrade Award which got that second room not only a nice suite, but club lounge access too (the first room we booked automatically had lounge access courtesy of my Globalist status).
The Hyatt Regency Birmingham is in the perfect spot for exploring the city by foot. It’s close to the canal, the Bullring shopping center, the German Christmas market, and lots more. The club lounge had a fairly decent spread of food in the evening, as well as complimentary beer and wine. The lounge doesn’t offer breakfast, so anyone with lounge access automatically gets complimentary breakfast at the main restaurant in the morning.
Overall, it’s a great place to stay and it’ll likely be our ongoing go-to hotel upon future trips back to Birmingham. You can read my full review here.
Things to do in Birmingham
This isn’t meant to be a comprehensive list of things to do in Birmingham. Instead, it’s everything that we managed to cram into our ~36 hours in the city.
Birmingham’s Frankfurt Christmas Market
As mentioned above, our main reason for visiting Birmingham in mid-December was to visit its Frankfurt Christmas Market. It runs from November 1 through to December 24, so there’s plenty of time to visit it in the last couple of months of the year. Running since 2001, millions of people visit the market each year and entry is completely free.
There were tons of stalls spread out around the market. One end of the market seemed to be predominantly food and drink stalls with all kinds of wursts for sale, along with pretzels, Glühwein, hot chocolate, and lots more besides. There were many covered (and I believe heated too?) huts where visitors could stop to enjoy their food and drink and socialize. At the other end of the market there were many stalls selling various German-themed goods, along with jewelry, other accessories, scarves, etc.
With it being the last Saturday before Christmas, the market was pretty busy. It wasn’t unpleasantly packed though, so we could still get around far more easily than on Bourbon St during Mardi Gras.
Black Country Living Museum
Before checking in to the Hyatt Regency, we visited the Black Country Living Museum. The Black Country is a part of the West Midlands that’s to the west and northwest of Birmingham. Historically, it was a coal mining and industrial area which is how it got its name – the smoke and soot turned everything black.
My wife had come across the museum when researching Peaky Blinders-related activities as some of the scenes from the TV show are filmed there. When buying your tickets, there’s a separate map you can buy for a pound or two which details all of the various filming locations around the museum. That includes Charlie Strong’s Yard, along with stores, alleyways, and more.
We’d wondered ahead of time how much time we should allocate that day to the museum. Recommendations online suggested 3-4 hours which I thought might be overkill.
I was wrong.
3-4 hours is probably the minimum amount of time you should allocate, even if – like me and Shae – you’ve never watched Peaky Blinders. Although the site leans into that aspect of it, there’s so much more to the living museum and it’s a fantastic place to visit.
With it being a living history museum, there’s all kinds of Black Country-related living history. One of the most interesting parts was an underground mine tour. That tour lasts 30 minutes or so and was absolutely fascinating. You learn so much about what life would’ve been like working in the mine, from the working conditions to the history of the horses and ponies that worked down there to child labor and so much more. Whatever you do, don’t miss out on taking the tour.
There were all kinds of other demonstrations such as a school headmistress, an aluminium casting display, and a guy who was creating iron chain links. Shae managed to grab a picture at just the right time during that display as he hammered down on the (almost) molten link.
In addition to the café at the entrance, there are lots of other places to get something to eat and drink within the streets of the living museum including a café, a pub, a chip shop, and more.
The museum has a number of themed nights throughout the year that take place after hours. That includes several Peaky Blinders Nights where you can step back into the 1920s and enjoy food, drink, music, and other entertainment.
Another great feature of the museum is that your ticket is valid for unlimited entry for an entire year. That wasn’t much use for my in-laws who’ve since flown back to the US, but Shae and I will hopefully get a chance to return later this year to make use of that.
Canal ride
The four of us were still suffering from mild jetlag, so we had a bit of a late start the next day. After having a late breakfast, we walked down to the canal just after midday to take an hour-long canal ride on a barge (canal boat) with Brindley Cruises.
Similar to the Black Country Living Museum, this canal ride far exceeded our expectations. At only £8 (~$10.75) for adults and £6 (~$8) for children, it’s superb value. Our guide Scott was a fount of interesting information about the canals, Birmingham, Peaky Blinders filming locations, the Black Country, and more. There’s also a bar on board where you can get both soft and alcoholic drinks, along with snacks.
If you’re interested in a fun, cheap, and interesting activity in Birmingham suitable for all the family, this is a great option.
The Bullring
When Shae and I first got married, we spent the first five years living in England, before moving to the US for 15 years. One of our first weekends away after getting married was to Birmingham and I remember us visiting The Bullring which, as it turns out, would’ve only been a year or two old at that point as it opened in 2003.
It actually has a much longer history than that though. There’s been a market on the site since the mid-1100s and was formerly known as The Bull Ring, named after the iron ring that bulls were tied to.
The Bullring (now one word) is the UK’s largest city center-based shopping mall, so we stopped in there to do some last minute Christmas shopping. There’s an adjoining mall called Grand Central, along with all kinds of other stores outside.
Where we ate & drank in Birmingham
Dr Vinegars Extraordinary Fish & Chips
When buying our tickets for the Black Country Living Museum, Shae asked the employee if there was some kind of quintessential Birmingham/Black Country food we should try. She suggested orange chips (fries) and said we should be able to find them while in Birmingham.
We mentioned this later to the guy giving the ironworks display and he agreed that we should try orange chips, but he said it’s a Black Country delicacy, so we should get it in the Black Country rather than in Birmingham.
He recommended Dr Vinegars in Oldbury, so after finishing up at the museum, we made a quick diversion there to pick up some chips on our way to check in at the Hyatt Regency.
The orange chips were indeed orange and they were…fine? They’re apparently coated in some kind of batter that contains turmeric and it was fun to try them, but I don’t think it’s going to be like Skyline Chili where we unexpectedly long for its flavor sensation. Give me chips in curry sauce any day.
That night we ate in the Hyatt Regency’s club lounge as there was a decent enough spread to fill us up, especially after having these chips and some other chips at the living museum earlier that day.
Tap & Spile
While on the canal ride, the guide pointed out the Tap & Spile pub as we went past. It was apparently used for a scene in the upcoming Peaky Blinders movie, with one of the key reasons being the two authentic gas lamps outside the pub as nearly all of those were removed from Birmingham over the years with the advent of electricity.
If you’re a Peaky Blinders fan, you can find some photos someone took of the movie being filmed at the location here.
Having an opportunity to go for a drink at one of the filming locations was too good of an opportunity to miss for my in-laws, so we stopped in for a quick drink.
Pizza Express
One of my wife’s favorite chain restaurants in the UK is Pizza Express. There are a couple of Pizza Express locations in the center of Birmingham, one in the Bullring and one at the International Convention Centre. We ate at the one at the convention center as it was only a few minutes from our hotel.
My favorite pizza there is their Sloppy Giuseppe which has spiced ground beef, red onion, and green pepper. Be sure to try their dough balls too; I’m more of a traditionalist and so prefer it with their garlic butter dip, but you can also get them with truffle garlic butter, fresh chili and hot honey, melted cheese, pesto, or smoky tomato harissa.
The Botanist
The Botanist is a chain of bar/restaurants with a couple of dozen locations around the UK. They’re perhaps best known for their large selection of creative cocktails, so it’s a favorite of my wife whenever we find ourselves in a city with a Botanist location.
The Botanist in Birmingham is only a few hundred yards from the Hyatt Regency, so it was a great spot to pop in for a quick nightcap after visiting the Christmas market and doing some shopping at the Bullring. We were lucky to get a seat though; it was only a few days before Christmas and most tables were either taken or reserved for Christmas parties, but we were able to snag one seeing as we were only staying for a quick drink.
I just got a whiskey neat; I forget what Shae’s mom ordered (it’s the one in the large glass in the photo below), but Shae got a Lawnstar Martini which contains Absolut Vanilia vodka with strawberry and cucumber, with a shot of pink prosecco on the side.
Final Thoughts
Birmingham is a fun city with so much to do – we only scratched the surface. If you like proper chocolate (i.e. not Hershey 😉 ), Cadbury World is nearby. Bournville is also somewhere I’m keen on checking out on a future visit; it’s the village of hundreds of homes created by the Cadbury family 125 years ago to house their employees and seems to have a very interesting history.
Nearby are a couple of theme parks – Alton Towers and Drayton Manor. Birmingham also has a SEA LIFE Centre, museums and galleries, stately homes, wildlife parks, and more.
If you’d like to watch a cricket match (I recommend either the T20 or The Hundred format rather than a test match if you’re new to it), Edgbaston is on the south side of the city. For anyone wanting to catch some Premier League soccer, Aston Villa are on the north side of Birmingham. Wolverhampton Wanderers are a little further to the northwest, although the way things are going they likely won’t be in the Premier League for much longer. There are also Birmingham City and West Bromwich Albion, but they’re both in the Championship (the same league as Wrexham for fans of the Welcome to Wrexham TV series).
For Black Sabbath and/or Ozzy Osbourne fans, Birmingham was their home town. In the city center, Broad Street Bridge was renamed as Black Sabbath Bridge in 2019. Following his death earlier in the year, there was an Ozzy Osbourne memorial up on the bridge. His birthday was December 3 and we were visiting a few weeks after that which is why there’s a ‘Happy Birthday’ sign up there in the photo below. I suspect there are Black Sabbath tours you can book through sites like Viator.
Birmingham is a 2-3 hour drive from London either up the M1/M6 or up the M40. Alternatively, it’s an easy two hour direct train ride from the center of London, or a 2-3 National Express coach (bus) or Flixbus ride from Heathrow airport. If you book your tickets far enough ahead of time, you can get a train from London to Birmingham for ~$10, or a bus from Heathrow for ~$12.50, so it’s certainly not expensive to travel between two of England’s most populated cities.
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
Suggestions for train tickets at gbp 10 from London? Heck it costs more to go to Heathrow!
Interesting and really informative. Thanks.
Baltis!!!
Flip Flops??? My, haven’t you turned into an Americanophile!
Excellent article, thank you for sharing. And I am a Hershey’s fan, thank you very much!
Sounds amazing! But “all good accommodation options were booked”? Everywhere in every city in Germany and France? Yikes!
Very nice! Sounds like all of you had lots of fun!