Ship shape and ...

Took a train today, just 3 stops and 12 minutes, to Bristol. We had planned to see Isambard Kingdom Brunel's ship, the SS Great Britain, but when we bought the train tickets at Bath Spa station, the man behind the window asked friendlily if we were on holiday and told us we should see the Clifton Suspension Bridge (also by Brunel), have a pub lunch, then see the ship and that should do us for the day. Seemed like a reasonable plan, so when we got off the train (I think the station itself was also a Brunel design) and saw a bus to Clifton right in front of us, we hopped on. Then we googled to check the trip and find out where we were going. As it happened, we got off one stop later than would have been perfect, but it just meant an uphill walk for a bit longer.

The bridge came gradually into view, and was pretty impressive, hanging 90 metres over a gorge. I thought we'd just have a look and move on, but Stephen thought we were going to walk over it, so we walked. The other side had a Visitors' Centre, which was reasonably interesting. The bridge was the longest suspension bridge in the world when it was built, but Stephen had thought it was the first. But no - suspension bridge design has been around for millennia. So for him it was a bit of a disappointment. But I found it more interesting than I expected, so it balanced out, really.

We found the bus to take it back into town, and had a sandwich for lunch. (No pub lunch today.) Google maps told us there was a ferry to the docklands for the SS Great Britain, and that was very close and we only had a minute or two to wait when we got there. I really liked the look of Bristol. I'd read that because of WWII bombing the city was full of boring soulless concrete buildings, but in fact there was a lot if nice interesting modern buildings. There was certainly a lot more colour than in Bath: in Bristol they're not afraid to paint and otherwise vary their stonework. There were more hills than I personally prefer in a city but overall I'd give it fairly high marks for livability.

So, we got to the dockland area. The Great Britain was the biggest and fastest ship of its time: iron-hulled and propellor-driven. For a steamship, the outside (above the waterline) was surprisingly similar to the Golden Hind and HMS Victory, but the inside was done up as a passenger vessel. That didn't quite ring true, sadly, because the wood finish was mostly pale beech, instead of a more Victorian dark varnished oak or mahogany or something. But the passengers' accommodations were interesting to see: first, second and steerage classes.

When we'd had enough we took another ferry all the way back to the train station, and headed back to Bath. There was one more place that we hadn't visited yesterday, which we thought we'd like to see, and that was an art gallery. It was covered in an bulk ticket that we'd paid for yesterday, and wanted to get full value from. The gallery's current exhibition, which had caught my eye earlier, was of Beryl Cook, the artist of all those paintings of big round fat ladies, doing things like dancing,

drinking, playing bowls and having fun. It was delightful! There was a good and enlightening progression of works from the 1960's through to the 90's. She lived and worked in the area, so it was a local show. Good stuff.

We had to leave when the gallery closed at 5. Again, too early for dinner, but we were too tired to want to go home then come back into town to eat. Buy something to take home? To eat? To reheat? Too hard. We decided to go back to the pub where we ate when we first arrived, and that was good: it was Feed a Friend for Free night: 2 people, 2 courses for 16GBP. Yessss!