Birmingham

To be honest, we didn't really manage to do a whole lot in Birmingham on this trip. We both needed to buy some nice clothes for the Tony and Philippa's Golden Wedding celebration, so we spent the first few hours shopping. Having said that, Birmingham is wonderfully pedestrianised city, and shopping seems to be a big focus for the locals. There are a number of extremely large, and impressively designed, malls that either connect or are otherwise very close to each other.

It took a while for each of us to find what we were after - pants for me, and a new top for Anna. We also found a threading display, and stopped to try it out. It's kind of fun!

Panorama of the Selfridges building, St. Martin's Church and the "Bullring" shopping complex:

We watched an interesting parkour demonstration outside the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, though it turns out they were just advertising a cellphone or something...

Another Antony Gormley statue:

Birmingham has an extensive and rather pretty canal network, which they've since taken the time to integrate into the pedestrianism of the city - to great effect.

War memorial:

Chamberlain Square:

After exploring the city on foot, we retired pretty early to our hotel room to watch another World Cup game. We intend to come back and check out the Pre Raphaelite collection at the Art Gallery...