The plan of campaign: go out, have fun, take pictures. Thanks to a slightly misfunctioning camera, the last didn't happen to plan. There are no pictures of Little Sodbury, which is nothing unusual.
No photographic evidence exists of the posh hotel in Tetbury, nor of the singularly appaling shortcake they serve. There's not a clue of the view from Nympsfield's Amazing View.
First order of the day is to prowl around the city centre, looking for something entertaining. Here's a tip: don't bother. Bristol city centre's shops are exactly the same as you'll find in any other large provincial city centre. Like Shrewsbury, one can go from the shopping centre to the castle grounds in two minutes' walk, showing exactly how close history and money are related.
In 1497, Sgr Giovanni Cabot had planted Henry 7's staff into a beach across the Atlantic, and named the land he had newly found New Found Land. In 1897, there was a pitched battle between Bristol and St John's to see who could do the better monument to John Cabot. Bristol got their tower up first, and it's 81 steps up to the viewing recesses, then a further 26 steps to the very top. While Bristol's tower was more like a penis, St John's is a proper small castle, and they win.
From the city centre, I strike out to the waterfront, and take coffee in the Ampersat Bristol exhibition. This used to be an entertaining little voyage through science by the station, now (by all accounts) it's a dockside exhibition pandering to Accessibility over Content. Even the gift shop contains little novel, just the usual superficial textbooks from the usual textbook suspects.
This'll be the view over Near Bits Of Somerset from the Clifton Bridge, then.
Fortunately for my feet, I'd wound up on the north side of the harbour, and the SS Great Britain and the Matthew are on the south side, and to get from one side to the other I'll have to retrace my steps by something like half a mile. So press on up Park Street, where there's far more diversity and shopping entertainment than in the whole of the city centre.
A rare moment when the Clifton Bridge is devoid of traffic. You have no idea how many people had to squeeze past me to take this picture.
At the top of Park Street is the City Museum and Gallery. The top floor has fine art, mostly 18th and 19th century local and French pictures, for some reason. Middle floor is taxidermy and maps and stuff, the bottom floor is minerals and an Egyptology room. Detained me for slightly more than an hour, so worth the jaunt.
Looking back through the Clifton bridge. The building on the rock outcrop behind the bridge is the Observatory, built back in the nineteenth century when it was still possible to find a Conservative voter in Bristol.
From the museum, it should be trivial to catch a bus towards Clifton, and take a good look at the bridge. Thanks to local MP Red "Dawn" Primorolo, this ain't gonna happen. The fares structure is simple: 40p for a mile, 60p for two, 80p beyond that. The routes Bristol buses take are byzantine in the extreme, though, and the bus company really doesn't help by only publishing a schematic diagram. Up here in the sticks, we pay the Ordnance Survey a small fortune to reprint actual road maps, and mark them with the numbers of the buses that run down those roads. Any twit can follow that sort of map, even if they don't know where the hell they're going.
Yes, I took a lot of piccies at Clifton, it was just about the only time the camera bloody well worked. Top one explains just why the bridge at Clifton is such a good idea - see how amazingly high the gorge is, and how the main road treks right down there. The bottom snap is yer run-of-the-mill Clifton shot.
Many changes later, I finally get off at Clifton, and step onto the bridge. Way back in the dark depths of history, it cost an Old Sixpence to cross on foot. Then came decimalisation, and the charge changed to 2½ new pence. Then the halfpenny was dropped (behind the sofa, that's where most things go) reducing the charge to tuppence. Finally, a few years ago, the charge for pedestrians was itself dropped, and we can now cross and recross, from Bristol to Somerset and back again, to our hearts' content. And all for free.
Last two from Clifton, you'll be pleased to hear. Top one is looking north up the Avon Gorge, with the Stokeleigh nature reserve on the left, and Clifton Down on the right. From here, it's about 4 miles sailing to the Avon mouth at Avonmouth. Bottom picture is your final view of the bridge, promise.
Another fight with the baroque bus routes leaves me half way up the Gloucester Road, needing to head back towards the city to reach my hotel. Thankfully, it's all downhill to reach the destination, and the walk does me good, as there are more funky shops down the Gloucester.
One of the shops hasn't updated its signage since 1990. I smell a new icon ... maybe.
Wednesday took me to Bath, the place with the invisible R in the name. Though Monday and Tuesday had been warm, I wasn't expecting Wednesday to be downright hot. Whether it was the heat, or the crowds, or something else, the city wasn't the most entertaining place.
This attention to detail is typical of the architecture in Bath.
Leave behind the Parade Gardens, where they would like me to pay £1.50 to laze in the sun. Pass the Abbey, where they're not only tuning the organ, but asking for £2.50 to hear the notes. Ignore the Roman Baths, because £8 is too much for any tourist attraction, especially with that many school children around. Try to ignore the bad buskers and dodgy mimes, and give some misleading information to passing United Station tourists. The whole city has become a shrine to Mammon.
One thing they can't charge for: tourists taking slightly dodgy pictures of the Royal Crescent. Here's my effort.
There is still soul on the margins: some independent knick-knackeries up Walcot Street, and plenty of used book shops around Margaret's Buildings, near the Crescent. And the park is a breath of fresh air, but even blades of grass ooze the starchy formality for which Bath has become known.
Quack.
Pultney Bridge is, so far as we can tell, the last bridge in the UK where there are still houses running down the sides. London Bridge was like that once, but that infamously fell down. No such trouble in Bath, where there's a little riverside path starting at Pultney, and leading back to the station.
Bath Abbey, seen through the shade of this tree-lined path.
Bristol good. Bath, perhaps not for me.
And finally. You can change your name, but we'll track you down and make it count. Muahahahahaha.
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