Sunday afternoons by train in the midlands?

A friend of mine wants to have a small gathering of friends in the Midlands this coming sunday afternoon to celebrate her birthday. Sadly, however, none of us have cars, so we are limits to getting around by train. This will also sadly mean the evening will have to draw to a close earlier than ideal (so no late night partying :P ).

Despite having been back up in the Midlands now for almost three years, I've been far too much of a recluse :( As such, I need some help picking somewhere nice for a group of young, intellectual and geeky women to spend the day.

Ideally we would want somewhere in the Midlands with options for both good and bad weather during the afternoon, a recommendation for a stylish yet reasonably priced restaurant for the early evening (with good vegetarian options), and with all the fun being easily reached from the train station (a short, cheap taxi ride is possible, however).

Can any of you help us out and give us some recommendations? Thanks in advance! :)

Birmingham

Everything is centred around new street, plenty to do.

I hold my meets there, as a young, intellectual geeky woman I would recommend it.

Plenty of nice places to eat if you research them too, especially on broad street / gas st basin. There is a really nice italian on the left hand side of Broad st (walking away from the station), under a hotel I believe. I would strongly recommend that for stylish.

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Originally Posted by Rosaline

for a group of young, intellectual and geeky women to spend the day.

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You having said that, don't be surprised if you get help and then a bunch of (possibly) young, intellectual and geeky men just happen to stroll past! :P

As for actual help, sorry I don't know anything about the midlands. but if you want it close to a train station, perhaps it would be a good idea to start by looking at where there are stations close by to where you'll roughly be?

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Originally Posted by tiggerai

Birmingham

Everything is centred around new street, plenty to do.

I hold my meets there, as a young, intellectual geeky woman I would recommend it.

Plenty of nice places to eat if you research them too, especially on broad street / gas st basin. There is a really nice italian on the left hand side of Broad st (walking away from the station), under a hotel I believe. I would strongly recommend that for stylish.

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I perhaps should have mentioned that Birmingham was already the reserve, in case we couldn't find anything more interesting (two of us have been in Birmingham far too often...) :P

I actually used to arrange meets here myself once upon a time...

Much thankies for the restaurant recommendation, that's rather useful! :)

not a problem, I have a feeling one day I'm gonna move nearer to birmingham. There are a lot of things there that are very important to me.

Shame it's not next weekend really, could have come said hello to us hexus rabble!

Hope you have a great weekend whatever you end up doing!

Edit: the restaurant has glass fronted windows... nice upper class feel to it... kinda place I'd like to be taken by someone special!

Thank you!

And it's a shame that it's finals season and I'm frankly insane through stress :( Meaning a small group of my close friends is all I can handle right now - but I shall be trying to get myself to a Hexus meet afterwards!