So on Sunday - without any sort of plan at all - me and Sean set off for Bristol. It's only an hour and a half from Birmingham, and as we'd never been before we thought we would give it a go. We're trying to see as much of the UK as we can at the moment 'cause like I said in my previous post, once we're all moved out and poor we won't be able to travel much. I also just want to apologise for the grainy iPhone photos, I was not getting my camera out in this rain!
So as we knew nothing about Bristol we found the most central car park we could find and hoped for the best. As it turned out we managed to park on the biggest most beautiful shopping centre I'd ever seen; Cabot Circus. Seriously this place knocks spots off the Bullring! We grabbed some lunch and had a nose around for a couple of hours. Cabot Circus has a few shops that we don't over here in Brum; Monki and Pull & Bear just to name a couple.
After wandering around the shops for a while we decided to try and find the harbour which was a lot closer than we realised. There were several stalls lining the harbour which we browsed before coming across a few boat trips. We love boat trips, if there's one thing I have to do whilst travelling it's go on a boat. So we waited for the next one to come along and off we went.
The trip was quite short at around 45 minutes but we learnt a lot. As first time visitors to Bristol it was great to have a little history lesson and have a few prominent places pointed out to us. Despite the rain I loved every second of touring around the canals and I'd love to come back in the summer to do the 6 hour trip to Bath!
After departing we wanted to have a look a Bristols oldest street which was pointed out to us on the boat. We started walking towards it but by this time we were absolutely soaking from the rain. Determined to not let it ruin our day we stopped off for a quick hot chocolate to warm ourselves back up. We'd unknowingly popped into a hostel which honestly looked fab. We didn't even realise it was a hostel until we spotted it marked on a map but both me and Sean agreed we would give it a go if we were ever back this way again.
Full of yummy hot chocolate and a little bit drier we carried on walking the soggy streets until we found Bristols oldest road. I'm not sure what we expected but it was just a bunch of pubs! Sounds about right for Britain though. By now it was getting on a bit and I really wanted to see the Clifton Suspension Bridge as I wasn't sure when I would get the chance again. We wandered back to the car and headed off.
The rain was still pretty torrential by the time we got up to the observatory which was conveniently closed. This didn't matter too much as our view looking over the bridge was just fantastic. I never thought I'd be into bridges but this really is one fantastic piece of construction! We snapped a few quick photos and headed down to actually walk over the bridge. After taking in the views and capturing a few more grainy images we decided to head back into the centre for tea.
We really wanted to eat at the harbour as we had enjoyed walking around there earlier and after weighing up our options we settled on a place called The Stable. It serves pizza, pie, and cider and seemed like a pretty safe choice to be honest. The wait on food was kind of annoying but once it actually arrived both me and Sean enjoyed our chosen pizzas. I opted for some strange vegan concoction while Sean chose a rabbit pizza. I actually tried the tiniest piece of rabbit and I thought I was going to be sick, I'll stick to chicken from now on.
We headed home around 8pm but we didn't have far to drive so we didn't mind too much. All in all Bristol was fab. It actually reminded me a bit of Amsterdam and we all know how much love I have for that city. Despite the rain we had a lovely day and now I know why the locals refer to this pretty little place as Brizzle.
I'm looking for more UK cities to visit in the next couple of months, I'd love to hear about your favourite places! Let me know where you think I should go next in the comments or over on twitter!
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