I was born in Birmingham. Not this one. In Alabama we say Birming-HAM, landing hard on the ham, and no matter how many times a patient Brummie nudged me toward the soft, swallowed Birming-um, my mouth kept defaulting to the version I grew up with. We had a few days to practice. Walden was booked in for a service, and rather than hover over the garage we handed him over, picked up our bags, and became, for once, people who stay in a hotel.
Grounded in Brum
It is a strange gift, being grounded in a city you did not choose. With the van in someone else’s hands we had nothing to do but walk, and Birmingham turned out to be a fine place to walk with no plan at all. We loved the feel of it straight away. It wears its old industrial self on the outside, dark brick and iron still standing shoulder to shoulder with the new glass, and nobody has bothered to sand every rough edge smooth. It felt like a real place rather than a stage set, a city getting on with its day whether or not we were watching.
Money, but no coat of arms
You can see where the money went, and sense where it came from. Birmingham was built by people who made things and sold them, not by anyone born to a title, and I think they knew it. Having the fortune but not the bloodline, they set about spending their way into high society, and to their great credit they spent it well, on grand buildings and even grander ideas. My favourite of those ideas belonged to the Lunar Society, a circle of Birmingham makers and thinkers who met near the full moon so the light would see them home afterward, and who more or less argued the modern world into being between good dinners. I warmed to the whole city for knowing that its founding legend is a supper club of tinkerers rather than a line of kings.
We ate very well
Nobody warns you to come to Birmingham hungry, and they should. There was a cream tea done the correct way, scones still warm, jam and cream both present and accounted for, the sort of small ceremony the British do better than anyone. And on our last night we went hunting for a curry, because this is a city that takes its curry seriously and we were in no mood to argue with it. We ate far too much and regretted not a bite.
The people, and the lift of the place
The thing we kept circling back to, though, was the people. The Brummies we met were warm in an unforced way, quick to help and quicker to talk, proud of their city without any need to sell it to us. And there is something in the air here, the particular lift of a place that has been through a hard stretch and is climbing back out of it. Birmingham feels busy with second chances. It is more alive, somehow, than a city that never had to fight for anything.
The tower on Broad Street
Our base through all of this, and the reason we were indoors at all, was the Hyatt Regency, a slim tower of blue glass on Broad Street that we could find our way back to from anywhere simply by looking up. We checked in, dropped the bags, and felt the particular relief of a proper bed after a long run of nights in the van.
We are Hyatt Globalists, which mostly means we have spent an unreasonable number of nights under that brand, and the reward we love most is not the room but the lounge. They put us in a suite high in the tower, all quiet and light, and it was tempting to simply stay in it.
But the Regency Club is where we spent our evenings. There is a wall of glass up there, a decent coffee in the afternoon and a decent glass of wine at night, and best of all the whole city laid out below. We would settle in with a slice of cake we did not need and watch Birmingham switch its lights on, the day’s walking turned into a view. It is a fine way to end an evening, high above a city you have spent all day falling for at street level.
Walden came back from his service running sweetly, and in the morning we pointed him onward. But we left a little of ourselves in Brum, the city I still cannot quite pronounce and will be recommending to anyone who will hold still long enough to listen.
We don’t check into a hotel often, but when we do we’ll gather them here under Hotel Stays.
