Riding a Birmingham canal boat

Birmingham was a main hub of Britain's canal network in the 18th and 19th centuries. They claim to have more miles of canal than Venice. Canals don't shift much freight any more, but there's lots of canal-based leisure activity going on.

The easiest way to get a taste of this is to take one of the public boat rides, from Brindleyplace, like we did. It didn't cost a lot, and for an hour or so we could sit back and enjoy an unusually tranquil city experience.

We went southwards along the Worcester & Birmingham Canal, via the Gas Street Basin, and the Mailbox development, out past Birmingham University, and 'into the country'. It wasn't the country. I happened to know that was several suburbs away. But it looked and felt like the country.

Here's a link to the company's website: http://www.away2canal.co.uk/