A day around Coventry, United Kingdom🧚♀️
Coventry, a city in the West Midlands, England is one of the industrial towns of the United Kingdom. The city centre of Coventry is just a 20 min ride from the nearest airport, which is the Birmingham Airport. Filled with greenery and peaceful surroundings, Coventry won the UK City of Cultures title for 2021.
On the 15th of February, 2020, we planned a tour around the Coventry City Centre and the tourist destinations surrounding it. We had some hot cheese pasta and toast for breakfast, prepared by our wonderful male friends in the group. It was delicious 😋.
It was a rainy day 😐, but even that did not stop us from taking the trip. After all, it’s The UK weather 🥴, we can expect some sun later that day, right?
So, we grabbed our umbrellas and took a bus ride to the city. The most convenient option of bus ride around the city in the group is to take a group bus ticket for the entire day around the city. The group ticket was around 5 euros for the five of us, so we took two such tickets for the day.
We took the bus ride to the Pool Meadow Bus Station, which is the central bus station of the city. Every bus from any city stops at the Pool Meadow Station and we can take a bus ride to anywhere in the United Kingdom from this station. It is located adjacent to the Coventry City Centre.
Right after we stepped out of the bus station we walked through the lanes of Coventry city. It was rainy, yet had some of the prettiest views. It was a comparatively peaceful and slow city.
We first went towards the Coventry Transport Museum. The museum had the state of the art transport exhibited inside and the opening had the statue of Sir Frank Whittle, who is the inventor of the turbojet engine. The ticket price is around 15 euros per head. However, you can take your student id if you want the rates subsidized.
After the transport museum, our next stop was the Coventry Cathedral and the Coventry Ruins.
Coventry City has experienced a series of bombing raids during the second world war. This city was an industrial hub in the 1900s. The city was also at the centre of Britain’s car industry, with many carmakers being based at different locations in Coventry, although many of these factories had switched to help supply the war effort. The raid that began on the evening of 14 November 1940 was the most severe to hit Coventry during the war.
The same raid destroyed the Coventry Cathedral, ruins of which still remains as a reminder of the bombing. A cathedral is built alongside the ruins and both the ruins and the new cathedral together form the Coventry Cathedral. The other parts of Coventry were reconstructed later. You can read more about the Cathedral here.
Our next stop was the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, an art gallery, records archive, learning centre, media studio and creative arts facility. The entry was free to the centre and derives financial support from donations, sales at the museum shop, and hiring the buildings out. We bought several souvenirs from the museum shops.
It was past 4 pm already. In Coventry city, the main attractions get closed by 4 pm and the malls by 8 pm. So it is wise to travel as early as possible.
So, It was evening time and we stopped for some food. The food here is of course pricy and we often tend to convert the price into Indian standards. But, according to the United Kingdom standards, I must say Coventry is quite affordable. We stopped at a restaurant named “chicken cottage” in the city centre and had some nice food.
The night views or life of the city centre is quite happening. You will see nice food, some street music and also people chillin' just everywhere around the centre. It is quite relaxing to have a nice coffee here after a hectic day.
Finally, at around 8:00 pm we headed back to our home and called it a day. Then the bus dropped us at our nearest station.
Note: I was not planning to write about my travel during that time of my travel, hence proper credits to the photographs are missing. After two long years, it is really difficult to trace back and give individual credits. Hence, a big thank you to Anshuman, Arkadeep, Dibya, Pritom, Julie and Pooja as a few of the photos in this blog are clicked by them.
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