And now, it’s the UK City of Culture for 2017.

In 2013, the Northern Irish city of Derry-Londonderry was the first ever UK City of Culture. This year, Hull beat out Dundee, Leicester, and Swansea Bay for the title. The UK City of Culture designation is so precious that it is only given once every four years — unlike the European Capital of Culture program, running every year since 1985 (this year split between Aarhus and Paphos).

I recently visited Hull to get a sense of the town in the run-up to its year in the spotlight. There were smiling greeters at the train station passing out guides to the city and banners and posters throughout. There were schedules available as well, packed with events.

A huge chunk of the city center was undergoing serious refurbishment — and some of these renovations are still ongoing. The tourist office gave me a photocopy of artists’ versions of a handful of junctures — among these, Trinity Square and Queen Victoria Square look very attractive.

Looking ahead, a big concert and conference hall called Hull Venue is slated to open in 2018.

Visiting Hull: UK City of Culture schedule

The City of Culture year is divided into four conceptual seasons. January through March (“Made in Hull”) will focus on local ideas and art; April through June (“Roots and Routes”) will examine Hull’s place in the world; July through September (“Freedom”) will take on Hull’s place in the emancipation movement in the context of an ongoing fight for social justice; and October through December (“Tell the World”) will look to the future. Take a look at the full schedule for What’s On.

2017 is a great time to visit Hull. We’ve rounded up a few tips on how to get there, what free attractions to check out and the best affordable places to stay.

Getting there

Hull is about 2.5 hours by train from London’s King Cross Station. You can find fares starting at £15 each way on the Hull Trains website. You can also try Megabus for even cheaper fares but a longer journey at four to five hours.

Free museums

Beyond 2017’s City of Culture events, all of Hull’s museums are free. The city’s museums are impressive and wide-ranging in subject matter. Here are three of our favorites that all sit side-by-side:

The Wilberforce House Museum

Situated in the birthplace of William Wilberforce, this museum is where visitors can learn about the history of the transatlantic slave trade. It also focuses on the life of William Wilberforce who campaigned against the slave trade. There is also an exhibit on contemporary slavery.

The Streetlife Transportation Museum

This museum contains a recreation of a 1940s high street as well as galleries devoted to bicycles, cars, and the railway.

The Hull and East Riding Museum

Explore exhibits covering 235 million years of natural history from Ancient Rome to Medieval villages.

Cheap eats

The UK City of Culture website has a great guide to food and drink in Hull. You can find everything from quality pubs and burger shops to fine dining and vegetarian options.

The Whittington & Cat is a cozy hotel with a pub on the first floor. Photo: Booking.com

Budget hotels in Hull

Accommodations in Hull are surprisingly affordable, from four-star hotels in historic buildings to cozy B&Bs. Search over 100 hotels in Hull to make online reservations. Here are two choices that are great for budget travelers:

Campanile Hotel Hull

Just beyond the center of Hull, this budget hotel has chalet-style rooms and a European restaurant. It’s a short walk from the train station and basic double rooms begin around £47.

The Whittington and Cat

Located by the Railway Dock Marina, this cute hotel is also a pub. Eight cozy bedrooms are uniquely decorated that all come with flat-screen TVs and private bathrooms. Some rooms have views of the Hull waterfront (ask ahead when you book.) You can expect to pay around £65 per night for a double room.

Search all hotels in Hull

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Weimar had an entire republic named after it. The fact that the Weimar Republic of the 1920s was ultimately unsuccessful—eventually eclipsed by the Nazis—might have been too heavy a burden for Weimar to bear. But Weimar has a knack of bouncing back.

Tourist assets

Few places the size of Weimar can boast such lavish assets as the town in Thuringia. Links with Lucas Cranach the Elder, Richard Wagner, Franz Liszt and Friedrich Nietzsche would have been enough to secure for Weimar a revered position in the tourist canon.

But Weimar can boast far more, for the entire Germanistik enterprise relies on two Weimar men: Goethe and Schiller. With such literary heavyweights in the Weimar team, it’s no surprise that the town cuts a dash on the tourist circuit. When Weimar secured coveted European Capital of Culture status in 1999, it was the smallest community ever to receive the accolade.

The Market Square in Weimar. Photo: © hidden europe

With a population of just 60,000 and a compact layout, Weimar is eminently walkable. The main railway station, just to the north of the town center, gives a hint of what’s to come. It is a striking neo-classical building. And Weimar mainstreams on classical allusion. There is even a mock Roman villa in the city’s Ilm Park.

The Goethe brand

Schiller and Goethe are compulsory. There is no getting away from them. There is hardly a hotel in town that does not have a Goethe function room or Schiller suite. In the cafés, there are Schiller schnaps and Goethe teas. During a few days in Weimar last month, we discovered Goethe pralines and Schiller pancakes.

But even if you cannot abide Goethe and know no odes of Schiller, there are still many good reasons to go to Weimar. For travelers making a wider tour of Europe, Weimar is the ideal small-town stopover.

Perfectly positioned on the routes from Paris to Prague, from Munich to Berlin, it’s hard to miss Weimar. It is right by the E40—one of Europe’s main east-west road routes. It has direct trains from Düsseldorf, Dresden, Berlin, Hamburg and even from Zürich. The nearby airport (called Erfurt-Weimar) has direct flights from London Gatwick with Germania.

The Russian Cemetery in Weimar’s Ilm Park. Photo: © hidden europe

Exploring the Ilm Park

The narrative peddled by most guidebooks (and indeed the local tourist authorities) mainstreams on high culture. So expect an overdose of dead poets, painters and philosophers.

The real trump card is however something much less sophisticated: it is Weimar’s small-town charm. The River Ilm, skirting the east side of the city center, gives texture to the townscape. Wander through the park along the Ilm Valley to get a feel for Weimar. It’s not compulsory to visit Goethe’s gartenhaus in the park—a building that is much too lavishly proportioned to be a mere garden house. But don’t miss the Russian cemetery in Ilm Park. It is a quiet retreat of poignant beauty, one that hardly gets a mention in the tourist guides.

Bauhaus connections

At one edge of the Ilm Park is the sole surviving piece of real Bauhaus architecture in Weimar—the Haus am Horn. It’s a reminder that classical Weimar has not always been sympathetic to the avant-garde. The Bauhaus movement was founded in Weimar in 1919, but was nudged out of town six years later.

Staying in Weimar

The people of Weimar have endured a takeover from investors from the west. The city’s premier hotel is the Elephant. It’s worth a look for the building is a fine piece of Nazi architecture (dating from 1938)—neo-classicism morphing into art deco. But, as too often with smart hotels, it is owned and managed by a big corporation that has few local connections.

If you want to support a local Weimar venture, head round the corner from the Elephant to the Hotel-Pension am Goethehaus (ah, yes, Goethe again) where Hendrik Rauch has restored a stylish old building to create a comfortable mid-range hotel which opened in 2012. It’s been a labor of love, but the result is a homely hotel, oozing minimalist chic at very fair prices. Room rates are from €55 including breakfast.

Relax at the Resi

As a town that pulls so many visitors, Weimar is full of cafés. Head away from the main market square for the best deals. Our favorite is the Residenz-Café on Grüner Markt. To the locals it’s just ‘the Resi’—and it’s a real Weimar institution, open daily from 8 in the morning right through to late evening. Naturally it has a room dedicated to Goethe, but the Resi is the perfect place to relax and plot a Goethe-free itinerary through Weimar. For there really is another Weimar, a more radical city, waiting to be discovered.

Nicky and Susanne have explored other aspects of Weimar in two recent issues of Letter from Europe. The articles, both available online, are Reclaiming Weimar and Sounds of a City. The writers paid their own way, travelling by train to Weimar and staying at the Hotel-Pension am Goethehaus.

The post Unpacking Weimar: A small German city that leaves a big impression appeared first on EuroCheapo's Budget Travel Blog.