Steam, Spires & Skyline: Birmingham's Eastside Odyssey

Explore Birmingham at your own pace

An army of metallic bulls once ruled these streets-and their legacy hides in plain sight among Birmingham's sleek shopping and forgotten factories.

Venture on a self-guided audio tour that leads beyond headlines and glass storefronts. Find secret corners, thrilling tales, and radical experiments buried beneath the city's vibrant pulse.

What midnight scandal shattered the peace at Bull Ring? Why did rebellious inventors clash at Thinktank over ideas that shaped empires? And who left strange neon messages under Digbeth's railway bridges, sparking rumors that still swirl today?

Photo: Tom W, Unsplash

Tour details

• Duration: 1 hour 33 minutes, entirely at your own pace
• Distance: around 4.0 km (2.5 miles)
• Stops: 15 landmarks, including Martineau Place, Corporation Street, Birmingham, Martineau Galleries
• Audio: up to 38 minutes of narration
• Starts at: Martineau Place

Map data by Mapbox and OpenStreetMap contributors

How it works

• Book here and a redemption code arrives by email within minutes.
• Download the free AudaTours app on your phone and enter the code.
• Download the tour once and the whole thing works offline.
• Walk to the first stop and press play. The audio for each landmark starts automatically as you approach it, so your phone can stay in your pocket.

There is no fixed date and no start time. The date you pick at checkout does not matter, and the tour stays on your phone permanently, so you can use it whenever you next visit and walk it again as often as you like.

What is included

• Professionally narrated audio that plays automatically at each stop
• An interactive map showing the walking route between landmarks
• Full offline access once downloaded, so you need no data or signal
• Freedom to start, pause and resume whenever you like
• Lifetime access - your code never expires

Where you will stop

• Martineau Place
• Corporation Street, Birmingham
• Martineau Galleries
• Old Square, Birmingham
• The McLaren Building
• Masshouse
• Eastside, Birmingham
• Thinktank, Birmingham Science Museum
• St Michael's Catholic Church, Moor Street
• Rotunda, Birmingham
• Bull Ring, Birmingham
• Birmingham Market Hall
• St Martin in the Bull Ring
• Digbeth
• Digbeth Institute

Image: AudaTours

What is AudaTours?

AudaTours turns a walk through a city into a story. Our guides bring landmarks to life with the history, the scandals and the detail you would never get from a plaque.

• Immersive: real stories about the places in front of you, not a dry commentary
• Offline: download once and use it with no data, anywhere
• At your own pace: start, pause and resume whenever you want
• Accurate: every story is built from verified historical sources and checked before release

Good to know

• This is a self-guided audio tour on your own phone. There is no in-person guide.
• It does not include entry to any building or site along the route.
• The landmarks on the tour are not affiliated with AudaTours.
• You need a smartphone with Android 7.0 or later, or iOS 16 or later.
• Bring headphones and start with a charged phone.

Who it suits

Solo travellers, couples, families and small groups who would rather explore on their own schedule than follow a guide and a fixed departure time. It suits a first visit, and it suits anyone who has already seen the famous sights and wants to know what actually happened in them.

Image credits

Photos: Curran2 (Wikimedia Commons, public domain); Tom W (Unsplash).