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Sep 25, 2022, 9:02pm · ⛅ 12 °C Altitude: 19 m
Bristol Fashion
September 25, 2022 in England ⋅ ⛅ 12 °C
Day 30 of this bizarre Odyssey. Who knows what's going on back in Ithaca. I'm sure Penelope and Telemachus have everything in hand.
Today was another day of weird delays and detours. There's nothing to do at this point but to lean into it, and to see every plan of action as a mere prayer to some foreign and capricious god.
Our plan was to head out to the Clifton Suspension Bridge at 8am, then have a coffee in Clifton, come home and rest, and I would go for a massage on my legs for which I've been taking pain pills.
What happened instead was we went for coffee at Caffe Nero, took an hour to get the bus to Clifton (our tickets didn't even work), ended up spending an inordinate amount of time at the Visitor's Centre (the charming woman there wanted to give us a free TED talk on the fate of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, but it was pretty cool I will admit), then after coffee we got stuck in a traffic jam on the way home because of the Great Bristol Run. At home, we had to change hotel rooms because the toilet wouldn't flush (right when flushing was R E Q U I R E D [I said "Abandon Shit" and Stu said "Shit shape and Bristol Fashion."]) and then we ended up walking to a super scruffy part of Bristol, me holding onto a failing bag of laundry like a body bag (we lost a sock, and then picked it out of the gutter on the way home), and then FINALLY, I went for my massage and the guy used a massage gun and wouldn't stop telling me conspiracy theories.
But you know what? Today was GREAT. Coffee at Bar Chocolat in Clifton was beautiful, and the bus ride was fun. We saw SO many great buildings we would never have noticed driving around. The suspension bridge was astonishing, and I loved seeing the rejected designs at the Visitor's Centre, especially a gaudy Victorian gothic style design by the Colossus of Roads, Thomas Telford. I K Brunel's Egyptian styled suspension design is peerless, and in real life, it takes your breath away.
I got to see two parts of Bristol that tourists wouldn't normally see, a Redcliffe Council Estate and the St Judes market: so much poverty, so much struggle, so much ugliness, and so much camaraderie and nobility.
And after it all, Stu and I went to The Wellhead and recited the rivers we had now seen:
The River Thames
The River Tillingbourne
The Trent
The Foss
The Ouse
The Tyne
The Tweed
The Waters of Leith
The Clyde
The Tay
The River Ness
and now
The River Avon.
Bristol is a jewel of a place. I'm having a great time. And I have a working toilet too.Read more
Traveler Apart from toilet problems-L and I had similar problems in Cairo of all
Traveler I was so surprised to see a connection between Bristol and Cairo with the Clifton Suspension Bridge. Those Egyptian shaped arches were originally supposed to have Sphinxes on top of them. The committee in charge of choosing a design couldn't agree on anything except the beauty of the Egyptian design. As to Cairo and Bristol themselves... I guess some places just require a bit more effort, eh! Off to Bath tomorrow. We have a proper walking tour booked. We were going to go for a swim at the Thermal Baths but I decided not to because it looked like a cult. (Treatments? Robes? I don't think so!)
Traveler Places all seems excellent.Brunel was a genius with an odd name
Traveler Great trip, we also had many good, bad and special experiences similar to what your having now. So some good conversations to share At morning teas when you get back.