World of Sports

Indeed. I was born and grew up in Sheffield, so I guess I'm a little biased, but I always thought it was a great city. It's a very industrial city - it was born of the steelworks industry, and has strong ties to coal mining too - so it's not especially "pretty" visually, especially the northern side of the city, large parts of which are still given over to factories, plants and steelworks. But it does have some really lovely parts to the south and west of the city, especially areas like Abbeydale, Totley, Dore, and Beauchief.

From my understanding they've really revitalized the city center in recent years, so they have lots of cool shops and restaurants among all the usual high street fare. The Devonshire quarter on the eastern side of the city is especially trendy. The cathedral on Church Street was built in the 1400s and is gorgeous inside, the stone Town Hall and adjacent Peace Gardens are pretty much the center of the city and are usually packed on summer days. The Crucible is just a 5-minute walk from there, in what's known as the "Theatre District", which also has the Lyceum theatre, the city's main central library, and the city's premier art gallery, the Graves.

It's also a very green city - there are many parks worth checking out, and there are more trees per capita than any other city in Europe. I've always been a fan of Graves Park, which has a rare breeds centre for farm animals, Endcliffe Park, and there are botanical gardens off Ecclesall Road too.

If you're into museums, Kelham Island is cool, and gives a really interesting history of the steelworks, engineering, and Sheffield's world renowned contribution to metallurgy. Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet and the Shepherd's Wheel are smaller, but similar. Bishop's House, in Meersbrook Park, is one of the oldest buildings in the city, dating from around the year 1500 - I grew up in a house literally 200 meters away from it. Weston Park Museum is another traditional art gallery,

There are lots of other sports venues too - Hillsborough and Bramall Lane for football, Ponds Forge is an international swimming venue, there's an international standard ice rink where the Sheffield Steelers ice hockey team plays

However, perhaps it's biggest benefit is it's proximity to the Peak District national park. Sheffield is the only city in the UK which has a national park within its city limits, and if you head west out of the city into the countryside between Sheffield and Manchester, it's utterly spectacular. There are some lovely villages and towns out there (Bakewell, Hathersage, Eyam, Castleton), beautiful old palaces (Chatsworth), restaurants and pubs, places for hiking and biking. Also out in that direction is the Rivelin Valley, which is lovely.

So, yeah, I like it