Bristol

After (wow I have no idea how many) hours of travel, we have arrived in Bristol.

Our flight from Toronto to London was delayed a bit due to new landing gear tires needing to be put on the plane. Favorable winds however still got us to London at close to our expected landing time. Airport traffic meant we did a few circles but finally touched down at 10:30 local time.

We chose to take a coach to Bristol (departing at 12:15) in lieu of the train, which saved us quite a few pounds. A two hour ride through mostly English country side and we made it to our first town.

The GPS gave us some issues but we finally got it to sync and trekked about 20 blocks or so through an enormous shopping district to find our hotel. We checked in around 14:45 local time.

So, all said, since that’d be 06:45 back home, total travel time from Seattle to Bristol was right at 19 hours.

Yeah, so where’s the pub?

Today originally was going to consist of training to Cardiff in South Wales. Instead, we opted instead to explore the city we’ve been home-basing in: Bristol.

I suppose we may never know of it was the right choice, but it certainly wasn’t a poor one.

Bristol has quite a history to it. There is one section of the medieval wall still standing — on Nelson Street — in an area if town caked in artful graffiti.

We took the hop-on hop-off tour bus once through to get a sense of the town before hoofing the pavement to see some sights up-close.

The Clifton suspension bridge, with its 50 pence toll, was beautiful both from afar and up close. Whether staring down on it in the Avon Gorge from The Downs, or strolling across it via sidewalk, this was a terrific stop.

At first, we figured this town was a bit too modern, missing any old English charm, what with our route to the hotel from the bus station consisting of a massive mall with all the usual shops we’d be used to back home.

It took a little looking and suggestions from a local pub owner, but the charm is there under the shiny new metropolitan layer.

We’re about to go poke about a bit more, perhaps even Geocache. Cheerio!

TOTAL STEPS 18,288
TOTAL MILES WALKED 7.21