Hey Owlets!
It's so rare that I have a weekend off these days - I'm always doing something and I love that, but out of all of the cities I'm lucky enough to be able to travel to the one city that I've not explored enough of is my own hometown of Bristol. Being a tourist in your own town is a kind of weird concept but it's something I would thoroughly recommend you do! My family and I are part of the Twinning Association which is a really good excuse to explore my home turf. Last weekend the French Twinning members came over from Champ Sur Marne so we decided to take them sightseeing.
Our French friends were here from Friday to Sunday but I handed in my uni coursework on Friday so didn't make it in the evening. However, Saturday is when the sightseeing began. On Saturday morning we met at Bristol Harbour to go for an hour's boat trip. I love the fact that I'm lucky enough to live in a city where it's a five minute walk between shopping streets and harbour-side cafes. We got to show them our city from the water (in bright sunshine!) and offered some dodgy translations which gave us a good laugh - someone said something about a "Coiffeur" but there was definitely no hairdresser on or anywhere the boat.
After we got off the boat we had some free time. The M Shed has a stream train that's run by volunteers. The train doesn't run very often - usually weekends in summer and some school holidays, but we saw it from the boat and decided we had to take a trip! We ended up taking four trips, but it was so much fun and brilliant to finally see it running again.
After we got off the train we still had some time until lunch so decided to grab a coffee in the sunshine - the Bristol way of course which means coffee on a boat. We had a table booked at ZaZa Bazaar for everyone - if you don't know what that is it's a buffet restaurant which serves all of the main cuisines from around the world - there's Italian, Indian, and Chinese to name a few. I thought that this was going to be great for me as I struggle with my stomach issues, but if you're like me then I really wouldn't recommend going. I didn't see any vegan food at all, and very little vegetarian food. They did have things like make your own stir fry so if you're veggie that's a good option, but most of the veggie options were really spicy which doesn't agree with me. I pretty much just ate plain noodles and a lump of broccoli for lunch. But if you don't struggle like I do then the food is really good quality and it's nice to get to try a lot of different things. After that we had some spare time in the afternoon before going to the pub in the evening - but we couldn't attend that.
On Sunday morning we got to do something that Dad and I have always wanted to do - go on an open top bus ride! We all piled on to the city sightseeing bus and this time they had the commentary printed out in French so there was no mention of any hairdressers.
This was the part that felt very strange to me - getting driven around my own city is a kind of weird experience, although I was surprised how much I learnt. I've lived in Bristol my entire life, yet I still found out that there was a lot I didn't know. I took a lot of photographs on the bus, but I didn't feel like I could do a post about my weekend in Bristol without including Brunel's Suspension Bridge.
It's nice sitting on the top of an open bus - there's roads that I've been down many times but seeing them from higher up gives a whole different perspective, although this is something I've never seen. This is Clifton College- it may cost almost as much as my whole university tuition to attend here for a year but we'll quietly forget that bit because the buildings are absolutely stunning.
After this we had some time to kill, so we had yet more coffee (starting to see a pattern?). I love sitting on the waterfront and watching the world go by. Especially when it's sunny - and on Sundays they have a harbour-side market so it's nice to see all the independent traders at work.
After our coffee we went to The Grange for Sunday lunch. I was so happy - finally somewhere that caters for me! The service wasn't great, but the food was amazing, especially for me! I had salmon and I could've eaten that for the next two days running quite happily. After this it was time for the French to leave for their train, but we went back and sat down in the garden. It was such a nice weekend. It's so rare that we have time off, but it was really nice to spend it exploring Bristol in the sunshine.
I hope this blog post has encouraged you to get out and explore your own city. I think we always tend to look elsewhere for adventure and miss how much you could enjoy your time in your own backyard. That goes doubly for dancing to a drummer in the city centre.
Let me know, what's your favourite place to go in your home town? I'd love to visit!!
Love and Feathers,
The Owlet 💜
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