The cityscape

 From my all too short time spent in Birmingham my impressions are that this city does Victorian and Modern architecture fabulously. If you're looking for ancient stone or timbered buildings stretching back many hundreds of years then you're going to be sorely disappointed because they didn't call this place 'the city of 1000 trades' or 'the terracotta city' for nothing. From the little bit of reading I'd done beforehand this was what I'd surmised and I wasn't far wrong. However, there is nothing like freely exploring on foot and nothing prepares you for what you might find. I don't restrict myself to a favourite type or era, but judge alone on each individual building. Brum's cityscape is exciting in a way like Oslo and parts of Cardiff are with the new builds that have gone up. As we strolled past I captured a few to give you a taste. The library and Selfridges are famous landmarks and probably familiar to many. Others I regret I don't have a name for, but here goes!

In years past when we worked up at the NEC it rained or even snowed yet as you can see we were treated to bright sunshine and blue skies. Having never had time to actually see anything of the area before this was one of our primary reasons for coming up. We weren't disappointed.

Arilx