Thanks (?) to Covid I can't go anywhere, but this is a great opportunity to explore some local places in my home town Bristol, in south west England. Perfect excuse to showcase what the city has to offer.
Brandon Hill
Brandon Hill is a hill (duh!!!) in the centre of Bristol. It's one of those places that I've passed by a million times since I grew up nearby the region, but have never been.
I'm not sure how high the hill is, but it only took me about 10 minutes to walk up from the centre, so I'm guessing not very high. However, the view is quite impressive, looking far out towards the Mendips, a local AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty). This is a great place to laze around on a Sunday afternoon, doing nothing much. How good can life get?
Cabot Tower
The other thing that Brandon Hill is famous for is the Cabot Tower. This 400 year old tower is 32 meters tall and is a Grade II listed building. The tower was built in 1898 to commemorate the Italian explorer Giovanni Caboto's exploration voyage from Bristol to Canada in 1497. So why an Italian in Bristol 800 years ago I hear you ask?
TL:DR - Caboto hails from Venice and was in the maritime trade. Somehow, he got himself into financial difficulties and ended up in England in around 1495. A few years earlier, 1492 to be precise, Christopher Columbus had discovered Americas, but Caboto was looking for an even shorter route across the Atlantic. Bristol was a major port back in those days, and that's where he found his financial backers for his expedition. On 24th June 1497, Caboto landed on the west coast of America, which is today's Canada. And that's how history was made and why the Cabot Tower was built.
During normal times, you can climb up Cabot Tower, to get a 360 degree view of Bristol. Again, thanks to Covid (!!), the tower was closed to the public. That was a real pity as I would have really liked to climb up to the top to get a much better view of the city.
And in case you're interested to find out more about Giovanni Caboto's voyage across the Atlantic, he's known as John Cabot in England, hence Cabot Tower. Just so you know.
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Bristol Harbourside
After Brandon Hill, I went to another of Bristol famous landmark, the Harbourside. I actually wrote about this last year. The harbourside is walkable from Brandon and it took us about an hour strolling leisurely through the city with lots of photo stops. To give you a bit of an idea of the distance, Cabot Tower is that little spike about one third from the left in the photo, above those white triangle tents.
Bristol Marine
This time I walked a bit further on from last year's post, towards the Bristol Marine. The marine is situated nearer to the River Avon and towards the Bristol Channel. This is what gave Bristol its edge as one of the busiest port in its heydays. There are many boats and yachts that dock here, and it seems like there's some canoeing activity going on as well. One of my favourite boat was one decorated with lots of rubber duck. I used to collect rubber ducks, and was so happy when I saw this boat.
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The Girl with the Pierced Eardrum
Last year when I was in the area, I went to see Banksy's famous creation The Girl with the Pierced Eardrum located by the marine. This mural is inspired by Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, but in typical Banksy urban style, he used a security alarm on the building as the earring. In line with Covid precautions, someone gave the Girl a face mask last year. I thought that was really cool. This year someone had put a gate by the building and visitors couldn't get close to the mural. I remember last year, the alley way stank of urine, maybe the Girl got fed up with it especially she doesn't have the face mask this year.
| July 2020 | August 2021 |
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Bristol's most famous views
Last and not the least, I'm going to leave you with probably the second most famous view of Bristol - the colourful houses. This is the view across the road from the Bristol Marine. The bank of colourful houses at the top towards the right have appeared in many promo images of Bristol. The other bank in the lower row towards the left looks like new buildings. I reckon they must have did the colours deliberately to complement the existing ones. I think this is a lovely view, it doesn't give you a massive WOW! BANG! feel and hit you across the face, but gentle grows on you. The more you look at it, the more you love it.
And now you're wondering, what's the most famous view in Bristol? #nowordsneeded
