Birmingham, UK by Kev and Mel

Hello from Birmingham,
We drove here from Edinburgh on the 27th of August (where does the time go?!!!). We stopped here to cut the drive from Scotland to Worthing, where we are going next to see Kev’s family, so we are only staying one full day here. When we arrive, we had a look at the city, which seems to be multicultural and young. The centre has a massive museum, but it was too late for us to visit it. We walked in the centre, where we chased statues of bull, hiding everywhere in the city (we found at least 7 or 8 if I remember correctly!) The city looks nice with a fair bit of art around: statues, new buildings and old mixed together… We also saw the Black Sabbath bridge, made for the band of the same name which started in Birmingham in 1968.
We had dinner at the pub next to our hotel and watch a bit of tv before bedtime.
The next day we went to the Warwick castle and it was brilliant! The castle has a long history of battles and peace time. It was first built in 1068 by William the conqueror. Obviously, parts of the castle were demolished and reconstructed during the following centuries. It was left in ruin during 16th century and when Fulke Greville was granted the caslte by King James I and converted it to a country house, but then more wars started again and fortification were added. Every century since its creation (except the 21st century) the castle saw major building works and adaptation.
It was sold in 1978, by Lord Brooke to the Tussauds Group for 1 300 000 English pounds to the great uproar of his father, who spent his childhood playing in the castle and after 374 years of ownership by the same family (the Greville family)
Nowadays, it is a great entertainment place. They have several live action shows, which are really well done. The first one is about the trebuchet! Andrew is obsessed with this kind of thing, so he was very happy. During the show, they actually launched the trebuchet and it is really cool to see! The projectile flew pretty far! This is the world largest working siege engines! How cool it was to see it in action!
The next show was on horses. They were recreating the white and red roses war. I have to admit it was a bit complicated to follow as they were talking and explaining while running around and fighting. But it was great fun to watch: there was sword fighting, jousting, tricks on horses, music and loud explosion! What’s not too like! It was a well put together show and we had great fun watching it.
The last show we saw, was falconry: several big birds of preys were flying around, some pretty low and past just above our head. While there was a story, there were also explanation about the birds. Again a well put together show. This one was my favourite.
Then we visited the castle, which has a lot of weapons and armours and rooms with furniture and wax figures depicting the weekend parties hosted by the countess of Warwick at the end of the 19th century.
There is room explaining different time of the history like the kingmaker area, where you can see Richard Neville preparing his army in 1471, with wax figures and set up showing how the preparation were being done.
Overall this was one of our best castle experience. It was fun, entertaining and educational.
This is a must do if you are in the area.
After a full day of fun we got back to our hotel, got sandwich from the supermarket for dinner and a bit of gaming on our computer and bed time as we are on the move again the following day.
This will be our last stop in the UK. We are on our way to Worthing in the south of England to visit family.
See you there,
Mel

27.8.2025. We packed the bags, then packed the car. We're off again, this time to Birmingham, back in England. Driving in, we realise it's a big city. Roads and cars going everywhere. With help from my navigator, we got to our destination. We don't have an apartment here, just a room at an Ibis. So we're a bit cramped again. Paid for parking at the hotel, that makes it easy. We brought our bags up to the room, then went out into the city. Mel loves big cities, and this one was a winner with them. A big mixture of old and new. Old stone buildings with new glass and steel sky scrapers next to them. Trams running through, fountains and sculptures, both old and new. We ventured into a Warhammer store, where Andrew had a quick lesson in the game's dynamics from a friendly guy named Dan. We walked past the “Black Sabbath Bridge”, where there is a tribute to all the members of the band. Birmingham is where it all started for them. Right next to the bridge is The Brasshouse, a pub selling “Black Sabbath” IPA. Now I'm not usually one for an IPA, but I had to have a try. Was not disappointed, as far as IPA’s go, it was about the best I've had. We walked back towards the hotel, stopping at a pub called Shakespeare's for a Guinness and dinner. Back to the hotel.
28.8.2025. Today we're going for a little drive. Out of Birmingham to a town called Warwick. There's lots of things at Warwick, but what we're there for is the castle. Once inside, we walked around getting our bearings. Found a “try archery” place where the kids had a go. We walked a little past that and saw the trebuchet! Across the river and a fair bit away, but still huge. We sat and waited there for the show to start. It was a good show, dialogue, small explosions and to end it, they fired the trebuchet! We then walked across the river, towards the next show, past the trebuchet, which only got bigger as you got closer. The next show was a jousting show. Actually it was a lot more than just that. It had people in armour, knights on horses, Squires and a descriptive story about the battles of the roses. The red rose of the Lancaster's, and the white rose of the Yorkies. The rise and fall of kings, and finally the joining of the two houses through marriage, to maintain peace. Then some trick horse riding, smoke and streamers. Another quality show. The next show was back on the other side of the river again. So we headed back over and found a spot. This show was called “The Falconer's quest”. A story about a guy who would see birds of prey brought back to the skies of Warwick Castle. Lots of birds, from Hawks to a Condor. They had them flying low over the crowd and zooming up to catch food thrown in the air. Another really good show. We had an eagle fly straight over top of us a couple times. If you reached up you could have touched it. By now it was after 1 so we started our visit of the castle itself. There was the usual assortment of armour and weapons hanging on walls. Paintings and sculptures here and there. We visited the water wheel, which they used for a long time to grind up the grain for flour. At some point they even used it to pump water into the castle. Later it was converted into a power station, the wheel driving dynamos to power the castle. We climbed the stairs up the rampart and walked around the castle, through the towers and back down. Last visit was a maze, with things for the kids to find. We lost our two in there for a bit. We wandered back to the car and made our way back to Birmingham. Grabbed some dinner at the supermarket, played a little and read a little, then bed. Off again tomorrow.
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