Things to do in Birmingham, Alabama

Birmingham is actually the largest city of Alabama. The population of the city is 242,820 (2000 U.S. census).  It also serves as the primary nucleus for a sprawling urbanization known as Greater Birmingham with 1,170,012 inhabitants constituting roughly one quarter of the state of Alabama's entire population.

Birmingham was the primary industrial center of the Southern United States. The astonishing pace of Birmingham's growth through the turn of the century, earned it the nickname "The Magic City".

It is not only a growing city with so many things to do for entertainment but also has some of the most beautiful natural sights as well.  Find out some of the most amazing things to do in Birmingham, Alabama.

What Alabama has to Offer

Alabama itself has a lot to offer. Apart from its natural beauty and the variety of natural landscapes within the state Alabama also offers a lot of antertainment, culture and arts in its bigger cities, like Birmingham and Montgomery.

The most famous tourist spots of Alabama are spread around the country and you can find places of interest everywhere. You can go hiking in the beautiful moutain forests, ride a motorbike through the green grasslands, enjoy a day on the beach, practice sports or enjoy some action in one of the water parks.

Alabama definitely has fun to offer for the whole family. Birmingham is definitely a great place to start your trip through Alabama.

Attractions, Events, and Recreation

Museums in Birmingham

Among the many things to do in Birmingham, Alabama, Birmingham is home to several museums. The largest is the Birmingham Museum of Art.  The area's history museums includes Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, Bessemer Hall of History, Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark, Alabama Museum of Health Sciences, and the Arlington Home.

The McWane Science Center is a regional science museum with hands-on science exhibits, temporary exhibitions, and an IMAX dome theater. The center also houses a major collection of fossil specimens for use by researchers. Other unique museums include the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum, with the largest collection of motorcycles in the world, the Iron & Steel Museum of Alabama at Tannehill Ironworks Historical State Park near McCalla, the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame, and the Talladega Superspeedway Motorsports Hall of Fame museum.  More information on these different sites can be found online.

Festivals in Birmingham

Birmingham is home to numerous cultural festivals that features music, films, regional hertiage. City Stages is a world-renowned music festival that occurs around Birmingham's Linn Park that offers three days of music from all genres on eleven stages on Fathers' Day Weekend. Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival is considered the third largest film festival in the US; it brings filmmakers from all over the world to Birmingham to have their films viewed and judged. This festival usually occurs on the last weekend in September at eight venues around downtown, but is more concentrated around the Alabama Theatre. The Birmingham Botanical Gardens is a sixty seven acre park displaying a wide variety of plants in interpretive gardens, including formal rose gardens, tropical greenhouses, and a large Japanese Garden. The

facility also includes a white-tablecloth restaurant, meeting rooms, and an extensive reference library. The Birmingham Zoo is a large regional zoo with more than seven hundred animals and a recently-opened interactive children's zoo. Alabama Adventure Theme Park is an amusement park with two independent sections: Splash Beach Waterpark and Magic Adventure Theme Park. And when you come to Alabama, make sure you take care about your travel and/or health insurance as the insurance system might be very different than were you come from (be it germany or any other place in the world)