Birmingham does loud extremely well.
Arenas, shopping streets, restaurants, traffic, football, bars and thousands of people moving through the centre give the city its energy.
But every so often you need Birmingham to be quiet.
Fortunately, it can do that too.
Birmingham Botanical Gardens is one of the city’s most obvious escapes. In Edgbaston, the gardens provide the sort of environment where the pace of a day changes almost as soon as you arrive.
Plants, landscaped spaces and glasshouses make it somewhere to visit rather than merely walk through, and it works particularly well when you want an afternoon that requires very little from you.
Then there are Birmingham’s parks.
The council highlights playgrounds, woodlands, walking routes, city farms and other outdoor spaces across Birmingham, reminding us that the city is considerably greener than its old industrial reputation suggests.
For something wilder, Moseley Bog offers a different sort of escape.
Places like this matter because they don’t feel like attractions in the conventional sense.
There is nothing you are required to complete.
Walk. Stop. Listen. Go home when you’ve had enough.
Green space can also transform an ordinary weekend.
Instead of meeting friends immediately inside a café, take coffee for a walk first. Replace a shopping afternoon with a picnic. Go somewhere purely because the weather is unexpectedly good.
Families benefit, dogs certainly approve and photographers will find a different Birmingham from the one represented by its skyline.
These places also change throughout the year.
Spring brings colour and longer evenings. Summer creates picnic territory. Autumn gives photographers perhaps the best few weeks of the year. Even winter has its pleasures on those sharp, bright mornings when staying indoors suddenly feels like a waste.
You don’t need to leave Birmingham to feel as though you’ve escaped Birmingham.
That’s the secret.
Cities work best when they offer both stimulation and somewhere to recover from it.
Birmingham has the crowds, concerts, restaurants and shops.
But it also has trees, water, gardens, woodland and paths where, for a little while, nobody is asking you to be anywhere.
Some weekends, that is exactly what’s required.
Find outdoor ideas: HERE
