Anyone from Brum, Hereford, Worcester, Shrewsbury or Stratford-upon-Avon?

[Pacifist Patriot]

I have the extremely good fortune to string along while my husband has business in Birmingham in a few weeks. I am more interested in history, art and popular culture so I have put together a schedule that takes me into the heart of England throughout the week. Yippee for National Rail! But I will also have a bit of time in the city.

In Hereford I'm visiting the Cathedral and the Cider Distillery.
In Worcester I've booked a guided walking tour.
In Stratford-upon-Avon I've booked the five house ticket package.
In Shrewsbury I'll visit the castle and abbey. I've emailed the Unitarian churchin town to see if someone would be so kind as to meet with me to show me that church but I've yet to hear back.

By the way, is that pronounced Sh-ROSE-bury or Sh-REW-sbury?

Are there other sites I should take care to visit? What about Birmingham itself? Any not to be missed sites to see?

On a slightly more political note I have to tell you about a gentleman I met Monday night. My family spent a few days at Universal Studios in Orlando, FL. I think I can say without the slightest exaggeration there were more citizens of the UK in the parks than Americans. My husband and I made a game out of identifying all the football club jerseys. I tried to meet someone from every single county but only made it up to 12.

Anyway, for the first time in my life I met an Englishman who admired George Bush. Then again, I don't think he was terribly versed in politics because when I asked him what he thought of Nick Clegg (couldn't resist) he blinked and said, "who?" But he was quite friendly and bought my husband and me a round of drinks. I shall have to find someone in a pub when I am over in a few weeks and pay the favor forward.

Cheers!

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. Not from the area, but "Sh-ROSE-bury", I'm pretty sure

That's the normal pronunciation, and I'd be surprised if most people were using the wrong one, if the right one were the 'obvious' one.

Doesn't surprise me about all the Brits in Universal Studios - the vast majority of British people take their main vacation (ie anything long enough to get over the Atlantic and back) in the summer, whatever the weather of where they're going (and don't mind if that makes it really hot - 'hot' = 'not in Britain' = 'good', for vacations). And Florida is very popular, and probably would have been even more so when they were booking several months ago, when the pound was strong against the dollar (not the case now - so things won't look quite as expensive here to you as they would have last year).

Bush admirers are rare (there's a lot less in the US these days too, of course), but there'll always be a few suckers or nutters around. As for not hearing of Nick Clegg - not so surprising. In my opinion, he's done very little as leader, and it wasn't worth putting him in in place of Menzies Campbell. The Lib Dem section of a UK political board I post on has more or less dried up this year.

[vino]

2. Birmingham

is not really a tourist destination but it has a great collection of pre-raphaelite paintings in the Museum and Art Gallery, and if you are into history (or jewellery) the jewellery quarter is worth a look. Other than that you can while away a couple of hours in Selfridges (the shop)and the food court on the ground floor is good - try the Indian food stand for something a little different.

[mwooldri]

3. CADBURY!!!!!!

It needs planning in advance and buying tickets but...

http://www.cadburyworld.co.uk/en/cworld

The Cadbury that's sold in the States is just reconstituted Hershey stuff. If it says manufactured by Hershey on the back, it isn't genuine Cadbury. Genuine Cadbury tastes much much better, and if you haven't had genuine Cadbury chocolate then you're sorely missing out.

Mark.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. I spent a week in Hereford at the Three Choirs Festival

(you missed it--it's in August) on a sort of group tour, and I really liked the city. We attended concerts during the evening and took side trips during the day. My favorite excursion was to Ludlow, a town in Shropshire that is really England in miniature: It has half-timbered houses, Georgian houses, a medieval church, the ruins of a castle. council flats, a town square with a farmer's market, a city gate, and even a weir. Seriously, though, we just happened to arrive shortly before noon on a Thursday, which was market day, and we had a great time eating our way through the stalls: homemade soup, homemade pastries, fresh fruit, even samosas.

In Hereford, you're not far from the Welsh border and the "book town" of Hay-on-Wye.

The great thing about England is that it's full of sights, but nothing is very far from anything else. If you have time, I recommend York. As a choir geek, I always enjoy attending evensong at English cathedrals, but the York Minster has an added attraction in that it's built on top of an old Roman garrison that has been excavated, so you can take an archeological tour of the crypt. The area within the city walls (which you can walk around) is mostly car-free. I really like the York Castle Museum, even though there's no York Castle anymore. Instead, it's a museum of everyday life through the ages. The special exhibit when I visited was the history of cleanliness, and there are permanent exhibits of period rooms and changes over the years in birth, marriage, and funeral customs. The last thing you see is a mock-up of an old-fashioned shopping area, with stores stocked with real items from the Victorian era.

[moggie]

5. In York, don't forget the National Railway Museum

I'm not much of a train geek, but I enjoyed my visit. Railways are very much a part of our industrial heritage, and not just at home: Britain used to build locomotives for the whole world (the museum has an awesome loco we built for China).