How to spend the weekend in Leam when your friend from home visits

It’s not actually that boring


University is the best place to make new friends, but your friends from home are even just as important and it’s even better when they say they want to come a visit. The pressure is on to prove your town’s the one. Although, does Leamington even have that much to offer in terms or things to do, especially when it’s a night without Smack or Neon?

Well, me and my best friend from home, Holly, tested out some of the things to do in Leamington. As it turns out, there isn’t a great deal. Leamington might look deceivingly attractive, and on a sunny day, blindingly white, yet on the inside, it’s a fairly dull town.

Jephson Gardens

Everyone living in Leamington has heard of these gardens with the big black gates on the front, yet has anyone actually been inside? For two terms I’ve passed this garden every single day and never thought about actually going…until now. And yes, it’s rather anti-climatic as you’d rightly assume.

This place is perfect for a romantic stroll with your university bae, or maybe even if you’re in the mood to stroll around aimlessly in attempt to cure that hangover from last night’s Smack, then these gardens are perfect for you. There’s geese everywhere (even worse than on campus), squirrels and all in all, it’s a pretty picturesque garden.

Hidden in the middle of these gardens is a giant glass building filled with hundreds of different plants and trees, and despite not even being an avid nature lover, it was still interesting to say the least.

Royal Pump Rooms

If you live in Leamington and haven’t seen the huge Royal Pump Rooms at the bottom of the Parade, then you clearly haven’t been living in Leamington for the past few terms. Turns out inside there’s actually a library, a museum/art gallery and Leamington’s Information Centre. Next time you’re wanting to head off to a spa or swimming pool, don’t rock up here with a towel and swimwear because you’ll definitely be disappointed. It’s neither royal, nor a pump room.

The art gallery is pretty much the worst I’ve ever visited. It’s safe to say that the Mona Lisa definitely won’t be moving to this art gallery any time soon. As critical as my view was on this art gallery, it offered the potential to dress up and pretend to live like an old-time Leamingtonarian. I mean, who doesn’t wanna dress up in a white bonnet and pretend they’re from the 1800s?

Tenpin Bowling 

No matter how old you are, bowling is always fun. The same definitely goes for bowling in Leamington Spa. Fair enough, it’s a fair old trek to find the place, but once you’re there it’s the best fun you’ll have had in ages.

Leamington Spa’s Walking Trails

What better way to catch up and gossip whilst also walking around Leamington Spa, showing your friend from home all the clubs you go to, and excitably expressing how Vialli’s is the best drunk-food place in the whole of the world? Leamington Spa’s website offers walking trails to show you the history of Leamington (bear with me), and it was actually surprisingly interesting.

First things first, Napoleon visited Leamington Spa during his exile. A famous elephant trainer once lived here. The Jug and Jester used to be a theatre and Queen Victoria spent a lot of time here in her time. How thrilling.

Our advice – whatever you do, even if a Leamington Spa Guide to Old Leamington tells you it’s okay to do so, do NOT drink the water from this fountain. Firstly, drunk people are bound to have used this as a urinal and secondly, the water tastes disgusting. Why we thought it was a good idea to test it in the first place is weirdly worrying.

Dining Out
There’s no better time to waste away that student loan than when your friends from home come to visit. A meal out is a must – beats pasta and cheap ready meals any day. Las Iguanas is where it’s at and if you don’t love Las Iguanas then a) please don’t visit me, and b) we shouldn’t be friends in the first place. End of.

Spending the night in

It’s the weekend, which means no Neon, no Pop – the only place to go is Smack, but Smack Saturdays with all the locals just doesn’t sound all that appealing. So, what better why to waste away the evening than spending the night in. There’s Netlix, Scrabble (for those English Literature students like myself, who get overly excited about the thought of conveying my literary knowledge via a board game), or like we did you can spend the night on Tinder.

Playing cupid can actually be fun, but even more fun is seeing all the people you know from uni pop up on Tinder, unaware that they’re swiping right on my best friend from home. That, and the fact Holly had never even used Tinder before made the evening consist of me dying with laughter.

All in all, Leamington Spa doesn’t particularly have a great deal to offer in terms of things to do at the weekend. My advice – go visit your friends from home and their universities, there’s probably a lot more interesting things to do.