Bristol Bath and Cardiff trip..

After a 5 month long work-work-work schedule, I set out for a trip, thanks to JA and AP. We were to drive since taking a train was a less exciting. It was the first time in UK for me. Though driving in India and US is not different, first time is always first time and my fears were reinstated by 3-4 honks I got as soon as I decorated the UK roads. I recovered soon. :).

Since its a travelogue and I love the cars, here's a mention of our other companion. Peugeot 307. A small car by size but no small from the response it gave. It was spacious and is kinda similar to apna Santro and Getz. I could reach 90 without any rumblings of the engine. But could not go beyond that.


Getting out of London was the toughest part and I couldn't read maps while driving. AP guided us, but after some discovery (read roaming around), we found ourselves out of London and on M25. M stands for motorway which is supposed to be the 3 lane expressway. This was at places reminding of namm Hosur Roadu. Got stuck at a point for 15-30 mins. Lets get to the interesting part now.

Day 1: Stonehenge, Bath

Our first destination was stonehenge, the world famous Windows wall paper, which shows some 4-5 stones standing in a circle and couple of them lying on top of the others. Here it is.


Nothing great about these stones. They are neither natural nor a miracle of nature. They are just famous because hype and Windows has made them so. It was cold and windy there. But bright. We finished the rituals of photos and food there and started towards Bath. The drive was amazing with beautiful country side on a bright day with speedometer reading close to 90mph.


Bath has a bit of history and was supposed to be the fashion capital of UK at some point of time. It has a lot of Roman baths and quite a bit of history.


We reached Bath at around 4:30pm. We were late to do any sightseeing that day. Trying to find a good accommodation (we hadn't booked for any accommodation anywhere), we roamed around the city a bit. Bath is very similar to namma Madikeri when it comes to narrow winding roads and tiled roofs and cold weather and rich people. We lost our way and to take a U turn, we jumped into a golf course. A good samaritan there, guided us back into the city and showed us where to find a good BnB. If you happen to go there like us, make sure you find your way to Charlotte Street. You'll find many of them on that road and people are courteous enough to welcome you even without any reservations.

Day 2: Bath, Bristol

Next morning, we set out to discover Bath. Since everything is in a walking distance, we just roamed around and hit Roman Bath first. It was a historic one and had lots of types of baths to cater to all seasons of the year and all age groups. There was a bit of engineering involved with different baths for various seasons and age groups. There were rooms built to get the body close to the hot water temperature. I hope the fumes are visible in the picture shown belolw.


Here's one more showing the place from where the hot water enters the bath.


Then we visited the Bath Abbey, a cathedral and a majestic architectural beauty.The very symmetry was baffling. The glass paintings, though didn't make much sense to me, gave a classy look to the interiors.



As I mentioned earlier, Bath was once a fashion capital of England and it would be incomplete without a costume museum. It had the costumes of all periods from 1900's to 2000's. The portion under repairs also had some Roman and greek costumes. But it remained Greek and Roman to our eyes since we could not see it.. :P..

Bath is also the place where the famous author Jane Austen worked. There was a Jane Austen Museum which showcased her life and works.


'Circus' sounded like a circus, but is actually a roundabout with a buildings built around it. It had a huge tree in the middle.



Post lunch we drove towards Bristol. Our destination there was Zoo and the clifton bridge. It was a short drive and we reached quickly and got into the zoo. Zoo was well maintained with glass enclosures for the inmates. It keeps it clean and prevented visitors from disturbing the inmates. The variety of animals was not too great. There was a lion, gorilla, lots of insects, lizards, penguins and birds and lots more.


Clifton bridge is a suspension bridge at a very high altitude, could be around 200m above ground. The cliff gave a nice view of the city.


We spent sometime at the top of the hill and took a short walk there. We wanted to see the city centre in Bristol so went to the millenium centre.



Took a walk about the city and then started towards Cardiff, which is in Wales. This was about 45 mins drive. Reached Cardiff by around 8pm and after some roaming around, found a street which had lots of hotels. We got into a hotel whose owner was just about to turn off the calling bell when we went and was planning not to take any guests for the weekend, since he had a busy week and was expecting a busy week ahead. Phew… Can we find this mentality in India?


Day 3: Cardiff

Cardiff is famous for its castle. There is a guided tour of the castle and a small protected piece of fort in front of it. Guided tour was nice and it gave a clear picture of the lavishness with which the Bute family built the castle. They went to a trip to gulf (read it the arabian countries. It’s the Mangalore slang to call it gulf. No. Its not Mallu. Mallu is ghelffu.. ;).. No offence meant.) and designed a room with architecture of gulf, with walls and ceiling with gold. Guide was good with usual sense of humor.


The protected fort I was talking about is just in the front yard of this castle. Apparently, it was built by some Romans. It was the usual architecure where this fort is surrounded by water body and I expect there would have been some crocodiles in them in those days. It had about 50 steps to climb and there was a quadrangle and a room on it. There was also a well, small one very similar to the ones we would find in India.




Our next destination was Mermaid Quay (pronounced as Mermaid key) which is nothing but the Bay area. It has been developed into an area with art and science museums, some old building, some new buildings and a few art centres. We spent some time in the Bay area, went into the art centre. A band was playing nice foot tapping music with lots of saxophones and similar instruments. To end it, we just grabbed a cup of large Starbucks coffee and started driving back to London.

One contrast I find between India and here is that people or the govt. here creates something with nothing (by nothing I mean no substance or a USP behind it) in it and hypes it (with all the free audio tour) and people like us visit it paying anywhere between 5-10£. India has many such places like Hampi, Badami which has a lot of history, are arhitectural and scientific wonders. But they are left there to rot like a drunkards hangout or a haunted place. And the worst part is though we know they are wonders, we don’t visit them.