10th May Hopping on and off


So our first day in the capital of the south west of England, with apologies to all residents of Devon and Cornwall, and our cunning plan was to simply get ourselves orientated in the city. 

Turns out we are only two stations out of the city from Temple Meads, the main railway station in the city, the roof of which appears to be held up entirely by scaffolding, and so it took longer for us to amble to the station than the time we spent actually on the train. 

We planned to use the hop on hop off tourist bus (£15 for two days worth of journeys) but as there was only one of them operating, and Temple Meads for stop 14 out of 14, we had to wait the best part of 40 mins for it to actually arrive. Once it did we hopped on, not as easy manouver for TOM with his two crutches, and then sat back to enjoy a drive through the city under pretty overcast but thankfully dry skies. A journey through the very posh parts of the city which made the area we had chosen to stay in look even more diverse and disadvantanged.

The advantage of using this type of bus is that I hoped it reduced the amount of walking TOM might have to do but we still managed to cover a good distance. We had a walk along part of the renovated and redeveloped docks area, stopping wherever there was a suitable bench. Paused for lunch at the waterfront 'Spoons, then jumped back on the bus out to Clifton Suspension bridge which we walked across. A famous 'jumping' site, the introductin of higher safety barrier along the length of the bridge has thankfully managed to half the number of suicides each year.

As the day had progressed the weather had got increasingly better so by the time we got back to our AirBnB, both of us ready for a quick teatime siesta, it was  certainly the past part of the day. But too tired to venture out it was enough to keep our eyes open in front of the gogglebox until just after 9pm.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

6th May Olbia

Image
  A chance to stretch our legs today with our first port of call; Olbia, Sardinia. And it was a quick stretch too due to it being only a five hour stay. Up bright and early, so early in fact that the hot food at the buffet wasn't even ready to be served. Still it gave us a chance to watch the ship glide into port past a host of oyster/mussel beds, before performing a 180 degree turn to reverse into it's berth. A couple of short bus rides later and we were in downtown Olbia. But there an hour or so before anything appeared to open, the disadvantage of being early birds and something we don't seem to learn! Not that Olbia had a great deal to see or maybe if we had done the slightest bit of planning beforehand there might have benn but we didn't. It was pleasant enough but that's about it. It was pleasant enough but nothing special, indeed we were back on the ship after just a couple of hours ashore and then managed to sleep away most of th...
Read more

7th May Naples

Image
 I'm sure I've heard the phrase 'see Naples and die' suggesting that it is perhaps not the nicest location in the Mediterranean but if it's good enough for Diego Maradona fir a few years then it's good enough for me for 10 hours. Although the millions of tax free pounds he was paid might have eased his stay. By the time we got up, washed, dressed and up to The Kitchens, the rest of the ship were already there. Compared to the Marie Celeste of yesterday it was absolutely packed, presumably with people having breakfast before heading out on 8am excursions, our excursion was simply going to be the city of Naples itself as possible trips to Vesuvius, Pompei or the Amalfi coast would have been too much / tired.  So on a day when the weather initially seemed uncertain, we jumped aboard route A for the Hop on Hop off bus and headed out into the mayhem that is the Napoli traffic where it was every van, car and scooter for the selves. I think it's bes...
Read more