Fellow traveler Brandes Elitch next to a stationary Citroen prop food truck – Warwick Castle (they are all over the place: malls, public spaces).
Kenyon and Margaret Wills add some local color to their recent trip to the NEC Classic with the intrepid Brandes Elitch-Ed.
Story and photos by Kenyon and Margaret Wills
The annual early-November Classic Motor Show that we’re discussing is next to the Birmingham airport in the National Exhibition Centre (NEC), which is a modern convention center that is to UK conventions what Las Vegas or Orlando is to the USA.
The show is very centrally located and the entire country is essentially “next door” via a robust national rail network or the adjacent airport, making for a several-hour train ride or a cheap easyJet flight into Birmingham Airport. Hanging with Brandes Elitch, we also enjoyed the National Motorcycle Museum, just down the roundabout from the NEC.
There is a major train station 1000 feet away from the NEC, connected by a giant enclosed pedestrian overpass. The train station has a fout minute monorail people-mover connecting to the adjacent airport. As a foreign interloper, you simply don’t need a car to attend this gargantuan car show as there are several major hotels within walking distance of the show building, clinging to its back for dear life like fleas on a dog.
In our case, we rented a car in London and drove to Birmingham by way of Warwick Castle. The motorway (freeway) was strictly limited in speed and very proper in driving behavior. All driving by others seemed circumspect and absolutely polite by comparison to the free-for-all driving experienced when we returned and merged onto 880 Northbound in Hayward, which was a flying circus of driving habits by comparison. Driving wrong side of road started to feel very natural after about an hour – there is certainly a rhythm and logic that’s different to it, but without the jack-assery of everyone practicing U.S. “freeduhm driving”, it was safe and easy for me, at least.
England is roughly the size of Oregon and its primary city is obviously London. London houses much of the UK’s cultural and financial centers, concentrated in one small, Victorian-built, riveted-beam-crowded-space. Birmingham, England’s second largest population center, is about three hours NNE from London. Birmingham has not yet reached maximum urban sprawl, and this allowed creation there of the National Events Centre (“the NEC”) next to a modern airport.
We stayed in the district of Whitechapel, just outside of London Town proper. It is notable for having been a low-rent, flophouse district of bars and drunkenness (just prior to the temperance movement) adjacent to London’s high-rent financial district 150 years ago – home to the prostitutes that Jack the Ripper preyed upon. There is a cottage industry of Jack the Ripper night walking tours through the still-intact 1880’s buildings down the street that I highly recommend, and ours started across the street from the hotel’s front door in a park. That being in the past, today the area is safe and enjoyable. Both Margaret and I appreciated the way that history was concentrated, preserved, and presented in London. Customs and monuments of past decades against a modern city that didn’t let them disappear into a modern way of life.
The hotel was Hampton by Hilton, London City. I consider the place to be nice, mid-level, functional, neither cheap nor luxury. The lights were off most of the time that we were in the room, you know, -so why pay more for luxury? Most important to me in any big city…stay as close to any Underground station as you can get. Aldgate East station was two blocks away – you can see stations on google maps and shop for hotels using this strategy.
As an added bonus, all signage and insults are conducted in understandable English vocabulary, so aside from minor cultural friction, the experience is so smooth that even our readers in rural Louisiana who have never left their parish could attend with minimal discomfort if they ignore the food (travel tip: don’t order the pasta!).
After doing the NEC show in Birmingham, we took a train to Glasgow because I like to fly into one airport and fly out of another so that I’m not backtracking – it’s called “open jaw” travel, and it is a good way to go. That train ride north through England took us through Lake Country. Incredible looking from the train window. I am now infected and must return to explore that area and I’ll probably get into Ireland as well.
You’ve seen the many photos of the Classic Car show and National Motorcycle Museum; here are a few from our travels to Warwick:
Warwick old-town-centre beam building
Warwick Castle outlying castellation/wall on a hill.
Falconry demonstration at Warwick Castle. The cone-shaped “eye sockets” on the face are acoustic cones that focus stereoscopic sound into facial “ears”, allowing the falcon to radar-range and target prey on the ground.
Warwick Castle courtesy Norman conquest