A weekend in Bath and Bristol

I recently spent a weekend exploring Bath and Bristol with two friends. We took a bus from London to Bristol on a Friday night, which started on an interesting note. Despite arriving at Victoria Bus Station at the recommended time, we somehow missed the boarding call and watched our bus drive away - without us! After paying another £10, we managed to get on the next Bus to Bristol 1.5 hours later. Pro tip - walk out to your bus ten minutes before it leaves unless you're specifically told not to!

We stayed at Bristol Wing, the nicest hostel I've ever seen. It had been renovated quite recently and had single beds rather than bunks. The shared spaces were also really nice with cosy leather sofas and shelves full of books and magazines. I don't stay in hostels very often, so this was a pleasant surprise.

Bristol is only a 20-minute train ride to Bath from Temple Meads Station. We walked from our hostel to the station and managed to arrive in Bath in time for our free walking tour. The tour is run by the Mayor of Bath Honorary Guides and is excellent - better than many paid tours I've been on! It covered all of the major sites and included a lot of details that we wouldn't have discovered if we'd just wandered around Bath ourselves. Our guide pointed out the last remaining Roman gate to the city, explained the significance of the acorns on top of the terrace houses in The Circus, explained why some windows in Bath are bricked in (it was due to a strange window tax) and gave his stance on what really inspired the architecture in Bath (it's not all about Rome). If you're going to Bath, you're most likely interested in history, so make sure you join one of these tours.

After the walking tour, we stopped for lunch before walking back to No. 1 Royal Crescent. This old house in the famous Royal Crescent has been set up in the way it may have looked between 1776-1796. I was expecting it to just be a simple self-guided experience but was amazed to find volunteers in almost every room of the house waiting to share a full history on how people used the rooms at the time and how they lived. I was shocked to discover that poor little dogs had the job of running in wheels to turn the spit! Thankfully, animal welfare has come a long way in developed countries since the 1700s.

After a day of walking around Bath, we were a bit too tired for a big night. We walked to Highbury Vaults for dinner, a 19th-century pub that was once the place where prisoners had their last meal in the Georgian era. The pub has a very cosy atmosphere and the food was delicious. I had the fish pie, which I can highly recommend. By happy coincidence, we walked up the historic Christmas Steps on our way, a rather steep set of stairs lined with old shops and crooked buildings.

On Sunday, we got a bit more sleep and started the day with an amazing brunch at Buttermilk & Maple and then got on the ferry at Welsh Back. The ferry ride was a great way to see Bristol and took us most of the way to Clifton Suspension Bridge. The view is great and definitely worth a look if you're in Bristol. Originally built in 1864, the bridge joins Bristol and North Somerset. We then walked from the North Somerset side of the bridge down to the M Shed Museum. There are plenty of great food options in the cargo container restaurants behind M Shed, so definitely have a look if you're in the area. We only managed a quick twenty-minute look at the M Shed Museum before walking back to our hostel to get ready to leave.

Bristol and Bath are both well worth a visit. Squeezing the two into one weekend was recommended by a friend, but I would have been quite happy spending the whole weekend in one location. Then again, I love museums and sleep-ins!