Holiday rentals in Leicester

Set on the River Soar, the East Midlands city of Leicester is one of the oldest cities in the United Kingdom. You’ll find echoes of its 2,000-year-old past throughout the city, including Iron Age artefacts in the city museum and a Roman bath-house complex at Jewry Wall. Without leaving the city centre, you can explore the ruins of the medieval castle and take in the Guildhall’s grand Victorian architecture.

Modern-day Leicester is one of the United Kingdom’s most multicultural cities, and you’ll certainly find that reflected in its vibrant restaurant scene. A laid-back atmosphere pervades the area around the university, while youthful energy charges up the city’s exciting live-music scene and the thriving creative quarter of St George’s.

The East Midlands climate is temperate, with cool winters and mild summers, and rainy days spread throughout the year. It is rainiest in January and driest in July. The summer months are the most popular times to visit, when you’ll find festivals popping up around town and along the river and Central Canal. In late October, Leicester is home to one of the biggest Diwali celebrations outside India, when the festival of lights transforms the city with fireworks and fire performers as giant puppets based on Hindu deities battle it out down Belgrave Road.

Leicester Museum & Art Gallery

This museum, which opened in 1849, is home to a huge array of permanent collections and exhibits, including a 15-metre dinosaur skeleton. More recently, it has been transformed into a modern art and history museum, with plenty of interactive features and events offering insight into Leicester’s long history.

National Space Centre

The National Space Centre’s towering glass and steel cladding is an attraction in its own right. This museum and educational research centre brings space and astronomy to life with a full-dome planetarium — the UK’s largest -- as well as displays of a Soyuz spacecraft and the Beagle 2 Mars rover.

King Richard III Visitor Centre

In 2012, DNA sequencing revealed that human remains found under a Leicester car park belonged to King Richard III, who died at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. The visitor centre uses modern technology to tell the story of a medieval king and the end of a dynasty. Richard’s bones were reinterred in nearby Leicester Cathedral, built over 900 years ago at the city’s heart.