Nottingham has some offbeat study locations that are easy to overlook. For example, the Nottingham Contemporary gallery (Weekday Cross) has a ground-floor café run by Blend (the popular Sneinton coffee team) (nottinghamcontemporary.org). It’s open Mon–Friday 10–5 and Sat- 9:30–5pm with coffee and paninis in a modern art setting. We found it rarely crowded mid-week, so you can grab a table and...