I love it when a plan comes together! Going to Bristol was a foiled plan when we were in lockdown here in 2020, so to go and enjoy it this year was a real treat. Thing had changed a lot since we lived in the UK in 2003 - 2007, that's for sure. All the river and industrial part of the city had been fixed up so it's much more beautiful! THe bit we're exploring is this bit - if you look on the map on Pinmapple here you'll find 
We walked up from the market (see yesterday's post) and along the river toward a bridge. I love the mix of industrial and modern, graffiti, new buildings and old in Bristol. This water way is actually to take the tidal excess from the Bristol channel so it's really rushing by. People die in this river. I can imagine - it's really churning and freezing cold, with high muddy banks.
From here you can see the Clifton suspension bridge to the left - neither brother nor sister was sure where they were going, but we got there eventually.
We aren't sure what these buildings are - maybe tobacco storage as Bristol had a big industry in that back in the day. If you had the money you sure could turn it into some cool apartments.
Later (and sorry this is kinda outa sequence, but the maze of the city confounded me a little) we'll see apartments behind the old prison, where they kept the wall and the gateway to nod to history.
I love seeing the architecture of a place. Apparently it's a relatively new thing in Bristol to paint houses different colours but it's lovely. Apparently they have to agree on what colour you'll paint the front. It's much more cheerful than dirty grey and brown. WE passed one tiny dark blue terrace house by the river for a cool million pounds. Way out of our budget. We pass a lot of hotels - it must be bustling here at night time. Evidence of that is found in two pairs of discarded stillettos on the cobblestones.
Eventually we make it down to the Underfall Yard Visitor Centre, where you can see the history of the harbour. It's pretty cool actually. There's a pump room which had working pumps that rhythmically pumped water into an accumulator. What's an accumulator, you ask? Well! It's this really cool bit of engineering which would have powered a lot of the area. The pumps force water into this big kinda drum which rises up from the pressure, and at a turn of a valve, the downward pressure forces water out. Don't ask me more - I'm no Fred Dibney. Check it out here if you want the actualy science and not just me pretending I know a little bit. It's bloody interesting 1900's tech though.
There was also a huge interactive map of the river and canal and harbour system which was also really interesting. YOu could also have something to eat in the cafe here and there was a lot of people with their kids and familys enjoying the benign weather and the harbour views. Althoug it doesn't sound so intersting on paper, I'd highly recommend walking up this way to the museum.
After that we took a big of a detour around a burnt out building and ended up at the Cottage Inn where Morris dancers danced. We had a pint in the sunshine - or Jamie did, a zero alcohol Butcombe bitter. Gee England does some excellent no booze brews these days, which are proper tasty! Faith also had a Thatcher's cider.
We admired the colours of the houses reflected on the water for some time. It must be so beautiful here in the summer or a sunny day, but the sun did come out a little to give us a taste of it, and to be honest we were just happy it didn't rain! I was honestly very impressed with the place.
Of course we spent a lot of time looking at the boats, from quirky narrow boats to something that was so massive it was probably owned by Russians, with a little helicopter on the roof. There was one decorated with a heap of cute rubber duckies. Faith's friend was moored across the way - have to say, a very convenient place to moor for a night out in Bristol!
Look I'm not even mentioning half the things we saw here. There's a replica of the boat that took migrants to New York, and Isambard Kingdom Brunel's SS Great Britain, and if you don't know anything about that, you need to watch a doco on him as he was a bit of a Victorian engineering legend who was a lot more than a really cool name. There is also a water ferry that takes tourists up and down and a lot more besides. Note the warnings not to fall in the water. It happens, peeps. Don't drink and swim.
You can also visit the M Shed, which is all about Bristol and has free entry (and toilets) which is pretty cool - we didn't go in except for the loo, as we were too tired, but we'll probably go in another day.
There's a lot to see here and to be honest I like it more than Bath. THere's an edginess to it. Everyone goes to Bath as it's old and you get to see the Roman baths, but I highly recommend Bristol if you're in the area. There's an art gallery or two and you can even walk past the studio where they did Wallace and Grommett. If you zoom into this picture you can see a penguin, a sheep and Grommett.
As far as city visits go, this was an excellent visit, and I'm looking forward to coming back. By the M Shed there's a heap of containers that do all kinds of food you can takeaway and go sit on the harbourside and watch the goings on, so that seems like another good Sunday arvo out to me. I hope you enjoyed what little I could show you!
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