B&Bs and Hotels in Birmingham

Good Hotel Guide

Hostels and Hotels in Birmingham

Do you have a hostel or hotel in any of these locations then please contact us to list your hotel below, free of charge.

Acock’s Green, Alcester, Birmingham, Bromsgrove, Castle Bromwich, Cradley, Cradley Heath, Edgbaston, Erdington, Great Barr, Halesowen, Hall Green, King’s Heath, King’s Norton, Marston Green, Northfield, Oldbury, Perry Barr, Redditch, Rowley Regis, Rubery, Selly Oak, Sheldon, Shirley, Smethwick, Solihull, Studley, Sutton Coldfield, Tamworth, West Bromwich

For UK travelers going abroad, we recommend Tenerife, with feel of the UK yet all the sun of Tenerife. Read an extract below from More Ketchup than Salsa, the story of a English couple who left the UK to set up life in Tenerife. Info on how to buy the book can be found below.

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Below you will find short extracts from More ketchup than Salsa by Joe Cawley – not to be missed.

Short Extract

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I noticed that the man had discreetly shuffled to within six feet of his assistant during his mimes of ineptitude. The music turned to a drum roll and he asked the silent audience for complete quiet. The man’s face took on a look of serious concern. By now, we couldn’t see the girl’s face at all as the crown had managed to slip past her nose and was only being prevented from travelling further south by her resolutely puckered lips. Gripping the knife between finger and thumb, the man drew his arm back and brought it sharply forward again, leaning close enough to his target to be able to actually place the knife in the board. When all three objects were safely embedded he span round, arms aloft and stamped a foot almost in time with the final cymbal crash. Neatly, it came down square on the cockroach for which he gained a trickle of applause. Obviously money had exchanged hands for this performance but who in their right mind would book such an act? Not us, that was for sure. After a fruitless search we decided that we were going to have to resort to the dreaded sing-a-long. The question was who to get to run it. We needed a compere and with the summer season a mere week away and all the best performers booked up, we needed to act fast. Another pub owner who had come to the bar one night to check us out recommended a friend who had just arrived on the island and was looking for work. She had her own gear and although it had been a while since she’d been on the circuit, we were prepared to give her a try.

We didn’t pretend to be a high-class restaurant. We were catering for package holidaymakers, timeshare fly-buys and loyal residents, the clientele who happened to be on hand. There was no demand for haute cuisine, despite David’s urge to extend his creative culinary skills further than fried or grilled, microwaved or mashed. On the odd occasion when he had satisfied his own artistic urges, pumpkin soup was sneered at in favour of prawn cocktail; beef pie and chips was preferred over beef bourguignon, and crème brulée was laughed off the menu when competing with apple pie and custard. Our weekly fish and chip special was also popular. David had developed his own batter, trying out various secret ingredients before choosing half a pint of Dorada as the winning addition. The crispy cod was another sure-fire winner, especially with the older set who ‘knew what they were getting with a nice piece of fish’. For some stalwarts even our ‘Hawaiian Burgers’, simply chicken breast crowned with a pineapple ring, would prove too exotic for simple palates: ‘Hawaiian burger? Oooh nooooo. Foreign food doesn’t agree with me. Have you not got anything like curry or bolognaise?’ Although the menu could hardly be called inventive, aside from the odd, extravagant excursion offered by David, it consisted of meals that we knew would sell, principally steak, chicken, pork chops, mixed grills, burgers, salads and omelettes. The swallows clearly expected more as they surveyed the handheld blackboards that we employed as menus. ‘Would you wipe this table before we start. It’s filthy,’ said the cravat. ‘It’s like a greasy Joe’s.’ Joy resisted the temptation to tell them that it was ‘Joe’s’.

We touched down, waved our passports at the disinterested customs officials and awaited the arrival of four mismatched suitcases, three borrowed holdalls and a square, plastic flight bag that, nowadays, is usually sported only by those passengers who still insist on travelling in 1970s safari suits with hair severely parted in a cut-along-here-for-lobotomy fashion. We had been happily reunited with half of our baggage, but then cases from another flight began to mingle with ours. The tannoy garbled in Spanish and then repeated the message in equally unintelligible English. Something about hairdryers were not to be used on horses. A rotund German lady with exceptional BO had stolen my view and I leaned a little closer to the conveyor belt. As I did, an overhanging Samsonite rushed from behind the lady and struck me square in the groin, lifting me up slightly and carrying me along for a couple of inches. Now I had tears in my eyes and an intense urge to lie down to contend with, as well as the pungent sumo obstructing my vision. That’s our case on that belt over there,’ said Joy, pointing to the adjacent carousel.