Birmingham Christmas Market 2024

This time last weekend, I was in Birmingham catching up with another of my best friends whom I haven’t seen for a few years.  I’ve done my best to persuade my closest friends that they need to live a bit nearer to me, but 30 years later, my suggestions are still falling on deaf ears – and they would probably say that their suggestions that we move closer to them have fallen on deaf ears as well! 🙂

Anyway, it turns out that with this particular friend, the train travel time to Birmingham is the same for both of us and as the Christmas market is on now too, we thought that might be a good opportunity for us to have a fun weekend somewhere different.  I thought you might like to see too!

Now, as you know, I live in Winwick which is a semi-rural village in the north west of England, so heading to any city is always quite an adventure.  I realised that I’ve never actually been to Birmingham before – it’s in the middle of the country so you go past it on the motorway whenever you’re travelling north or south, and the state of the traffic will dictate how fast or slow you go past – but I’ve never been into the city centre (or if I have, I don’t remember).  My husband has been much more recently and said that there’s been a lot of development work done and he thought we would really like it.

A lot of the development work is still ongoing – Birmingham City Council has ambitious plans for city living and working, and we walked past a lot of construction sites to get to the apartment that we’d rented about 15 minutes’ walk from the city centre.  It’s so easy these days not to stay in a hotel, isn’t it?  We chose a two bedroom apartment with a kitchen and sitting room area because we thought that would be more comfortable than sitting in hotel rooms or bars, and we were really happy with our choice in a quiet residential block.  The apartment had an upstairs which I thought was fabulous – but not as fabulous as the view across to the city!

Semi-rural house dweller here.  Seven floors up in a city apartment is quite the novelty!

Once we’d done the walk to and from the station once, it was easy enough to get our bearings and walk in and out of the city.    By the time we got there on the first night, it was about 5pm and it was quite dark.  Not so at the Christmas market!

Goodness, it was busy!  I don’t think either of us had expected there to be such big crowds, although it was the opening weekend so that did explain it.  The Christmas market is divided across a couple of locations so there’s plenty to see – and even more to eat and drink!

Alcholic, non-alcoholic, warm and cold drinks were readily available although we decided to forgo the Glühwein as much as we both like it, as you had to buy the cup or glass as well and that made it much more expensive.  I think if you’re planning on more drinks or more visits than we had in mind it would be fine, but we decided not to.   It’s classed as a deposit and I think the idea is that you can take the cup or glass back for a refund, but the organisers are banking on the fact that you’re not going to do that 🙂

These weren’t the biggest Stein glasses either!

What we did decide to spend our money on over the weekend, however, was the food, filling ourselves up for lunch and after dinner with hot and cold treats.   We checked out all the food stands and I don’t know what it’s like at other markets, but we felt that the food here was very good value for the money.  It was all freshly cooked, turning over quickly and there were big queues at all of the stands which is always a good sign!

We ate trays of crispy potatoes and mushrooms …

Poffertjes … little Dutch pancakes that look a bit like the rice paper sherbet-filled flying saucer sweets that used to be in the sweetie shops when I was little.  I never liked the flying saucers, but I LOVE these!  I’ve never seen them before and we watched the lady on the stand flick them out of a pan and into cardboard trays, and we couldn’t resist!  The closest I can come to pronouncing the name is “poffertures”, and I hope any Dutch readers will forgive me!

Huge falafel wraps stuffed with hummus, salad and falafels (honestly, this was nearly bigger than my head!) …

and this wasn’t in the market but in a coffee shop … the biggest almond croissant I think I have ever seen!

We were stuffed!

The market was sooo busy.  Birmingham itself was so busy – I don’t think I’ve ever been into a city centre where people were queuing to get into the shops and cafes on the main streets; not just the odd one but many of them, and they all had rope systems outside to contain the queues so it’s obviously a common occurrence there.

There’s a limit to how long you can (or might want to) spend in the shopping areas so although we found ourselves drawn back there every night (the siren call of those food stalls is very loud! 🙂 ), we spent most of Saturday walking along by the canal and chatting.

According to the Canal and River Trust, Birmingham has over 100 miles of canals within the network of waterways and even in the bustling city centre, you are not that far from the water and the mode of transport that will have contributed to the city’s wealth in years gone by.

We could get onto the towpath at the end of the road where we were staying and after a leisurely start (oh, the joys of leaving family at home in charge of pets!), we found ourselves suddenly in a completely different world.   You wouldn’t believe that we were less than a mile from the city centre!

You can walk for miles down both sides of the canal both towards and away from the city.  We headed towards and eventually, we found ourselves at the Gas Street Basin where the canal meets the city …

and stopped for lunch in a lovely pub there – just in time as it started to rain.  We had been ready to leave, but saw the rain had got heavier and opted to have another brew and a cream scone instead 🙂

I don’t know where I’ve got this sudden urge to eat all the scones from, but that was my cake of choice last time I was with a friend too!

I think what surprised us most about Birmingham is how many faces it has.  The busy shopping centres and streets, the quiet canals and regenerated areas such as around the Custard Factory …

This was once a factory where Bird’s Custard Powder was made but is now a home for independent shops and art galleries, and also an area where you can see the most amazing graffiti.

On the walk back to our apartment, we walked past these pictures on the wall of an underpass.  Can you recognise the characters in the pictures?  They amused us no end!

We had such a good time and would definitely think about coming back here again as it was easy for us to get to and get around. Before I finish for today, I must just show you the sculpture at the railway station … this is Ozzy the Bull!

You can see from the people around just how tall he is, and every hour his eyes light up and he moves his head, bellows and wags his tail.  There’s a long (and not always kind) tradition around bulls in Birmingham and in particular in this area of the city so that may be why Ozzy looks a little bit cross, but he is certainly not a bull to be trifled with these days – and I thought he was fantastic!

It’s seemed like a very quiet week at home this week after all that excitement, but I so appreciated being able to see my friend and for us to take our time and do what we felt like doing All Weekend!  I hope you’ve enjoyed looking round with us! xx