After 4 weeks in villages and small towns, it has been quite an adjustment getting used to the hustle & bustle, crowds, and especially the noise of this metropolitan area of over a million people.
We started the day by checking out exactly where we will catch the bus to the airport tomorrow morning. Thankfully we catch the bus right over the road from the hotel, at the Temple Mead railway station, which is a lovely old building.
Temple Mead railway station
From there we walked a circular route which took in some of the sights and the shopping areas. Bristol claims to be the UK's "Green Capital", and we saw some evidence of green-ness as we walked around town. The first item was a solar-powered charging station for mobile phones, which seemed to only have 1 charging port working as the other connection points had all been stolen or vandalized. The second was an urban garden offering free food, which seemed to be well patronized.
We then climbed to the top of Brandon Hill, to visit the Cabot Tower, which was built in 1897 to commemorate 400 years since John Cabot had sailed off to discover Canada. The sign at the bottom of the hill indicated that the tower was 400 ft. tall, but it certainly did not look that tall, and we decided to climb the spiral staircase to the top. The morning was very foggy so the views were somewhat limited and the photos disappointing from the top. After climbing the hill and the tower, my Fitbit told me that we had only climbed 310 ft. since leaving the hotel, so a quick Google search confirmed that the tower is only 104 ft. tall....I don't think that they could have built a 400 ft. tower in 1897!
Next was the Christmas Steps, built in 1669 to replace a mud track leading up the hill from the river. The area is home to many old buildings, and is the arts quarter of the city.
Christmas Steps
Back down the steps, we headed through the Old City, checked out a big book / map store, and after a quick lunch we visited the shops along Park Street, followed by the Galleries and Cabot Circus shopping centres.
All shopped out, we headed back to the hotel via Temple Quay, to watch South Africa trounce Scotland in the Rugby World Cup.
In the evening we headed back to Harbourside, for a curry at a restaurant that we passed earlier in the day. This part of town was packed with people and as we walked back to the hotel, we passed a constant stream of humanity, most of them clutching an alcoholic beverage, headed to Harbourside to add to the crowd. The photograph below does not do it justice, but it was difficult to get over the pedestrian bridge and through the areas on either side of the river, due to the number of people.
We finished off the evening watching Australia defeat England in World Cup rugby. There will be a lot of disappointed Englishmen tonight as England will not advance to the quarter finals.
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