Birmingham City
Car Hire in Birmingham UK
If you’re heading to the centre of England and would like to explore the countryside by car at your own leisure, grab a discount rental car in Birmingham and access the entire country easily from this historic city easily.
Compare rental car prices on our site today and book a reliable compact, economy or larger vehicle to explore in any direction. Grab a deal on a Toyota, Kia, VW, Hyundai or more.
You can compare major car rental companies like Hertz, Budget, Avis, Europcar; as well as local brands of Enterprise and Green motion.
Birmingham, England’s second most populous city after London, emerges from the ashes of its industrial past and ruins of WWII, and entices visitors with its gentrified and urbanized look whilst retaining some character reminiscent as the birthplace of the steam engine that literally paved England’s way to the Industrial Revolution.
Fittingly, for a medieval industrial entrepot that gave birth to the Mini (cars), renting a car in Birmingham is the best way to get to know the “City of a Thousand Trades”.
You may want to consider a one way rental for your UK road trip so that you can drop off your car at any city or airport of your choosing?
Driving in and around Birmingham
A great first stop in Birmingham is the city center, particularly the Newhall Street and Colmore Row which are still dotted with terracotta-colored Victorian buildings.
Five minutes southeast and you reach the post-industrial Bull Ring, the thousand-year-old medieval market that evolved to become the commercial hub of the city and the largest shopping complex outside of London’s West End.
A deluge of options for eats and retail treats await the foodie and shopaholic, but a day around Bull Ring also means a trip back into the medieval history of the commercial complex and its surrounds.
Whilst much of the Middle Age architecture gave way to 18th to 20th century buildings, there is still the Victorian parish church of St. Martin in the Bull Ring to get you started.
From here, five minutes east, drive to The Old Crown, the oldest tavern in the city dating back to 14th century, distinguished by its black and white timber frames.
Five miles south of the city center and a sweet heritage tour awaits the chocolate fan.
The British confectionery giant Cadbury, established in 1824, offers a brief tour of the factory floor and a bargain sale of misshapes.
Another five miles east and you will get to see the inspiration of the Hobbits, the childhood home of the literary giant JRR Tolkien.
Exploring Birmingham
Despite its image as a once grimy hard-edged town, Birmingham is in fact dotted with plenty of green spaces, botanic gardens and parks and surrounded by leafy countryside and expansive nature reserves only 30 minutes away in any direction.
Indoors, Birmingham is awash in pastel colors. If you are into Pre-Raphaelite arts, the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery two miles northwest of Bull Ring hosts an impressive collection of Millais and Rossetti and Old Masters Rubens, Canaletto and Bellini, and a respectable horde of Italian Baroque painting, English watercolours, ceramics and metalwork.
Four miles south of the museum brings you to the Barber Institute of Fine Arts for a continuum of Western art from 13th century to the present.
Get a Dose of Bollywood and Balti
Birmingham may be an unlikely place for Indian cinema and Pakistani cuisine, but as the “Workshop of the World”, Birmingham has attracted workers from all corners of the globe who brought with them a slice of home.
Before you head back home, try the Kashmiri curry “balti” along the Balti Belt in Sparkbrook, a district that is also famous for everything Asian.
Bollywood events – film screenings, live music, fashion shows, distinctive dance performances – take place in venues around the city and worth a detour by itself if you visit in June.
