Bristol University and Museum

Luka, diligent lad that he is, decided he needed to hit the books Sunday morning (and not, I am sure, just have a lie in) so we had arranged to meet up again at the Albion pub for a late lunch. I booked a table for 2:15. 

So after a full breakfast at my hotel I decided to go to the museum and art gallery, but first had a wander around the University itself. This is not really Luka's haunt as it is all the STEM stuff. But it is a fine set of Victorian buildings with a few new additions. And it wasn't raining. So took my camera and roved around with hardly another soul about.

Actually the Bristol Grammar School which is adjacent

I wandered into Fort Royal Gardens, which I thought would be amazing in summer. Well they were originally designed by Humphrey Repton, second only to Capability Brown in standing. At least in winter I had them pretty much to myself, even if there were only a few hellebores and crocuses out.

I read the blurb about this statue, expecting it to be some notable academic at Bristol. No, it turned out to be some woman who died of cancer and whose cells had been used in research. Which seems as unlikely to be a worthy subject of a statue as anyone else who had donated their body to medical science. But apparently what made her special was that she was black. So even if they couldn't find a black woman to have achieved anything herself, at  least they found a black woman who had something important done to her cells.

Then into the Museum and Art Gallery which is really quite extensive, and has a thoroughly eclectic collection. (And although free, I found over lunch that Luka and Anna had never visited it...)

The ground floor has a decent Egyptian collection but rather more remarkable are the Assyrian carvings

Fearsome warriors but with neat little handbags

There is a large natural history collection but I largely ignored the skeletons as that is where all the under 5s were out. Sunday morning, what else do you do if you are middle class and have little kids?

But I love rocks and minerals and they have a fine collection of them

And up a further floor a good art collection from old masters to modern art

 I also took in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition that I normally see in London. No photos of that as they are forbidden, but it was very good and as always I think  the winner of the under 10s category beats any of my shots. Sigh.

Finished up about 2pm, collected my bag and returned to Clifton to the Albion pub, arriving about 60 seconds ahead of my young friends. Perfect. And Danny Dyer was there. Almost touching fame.

Sunday roasts all round. Not the best, and in any case I wasn't truly hungry after breakfast. But it was a comfortable way to spend an afternoon and finish off a very enjoyable weekend. I may get myself invited down again....

Bristol on Saturday

Luka had been asking me for a while to visit him at Bristol University. As this is his second year, I have been remiss. Unfortunately, we chose a very wet weekend.

So I arrive at the glorious Victorian Temple Meads station. Many of our main stations are "Gothic cathedrals". Here we have a mock Tudor station

So truly a magnificent station building

Having let a shower pass I headed to a nearby pub for lunch, popping across the river...

..to the Barley Mow. Which had a roaring fire which was most welcome to dry off in.

Unfortunately its menu mostly consisted of varieties of burger . So I had a burger. Good as burgers go, but....

So then off into central Bristol to meet Luka and his girlfriend Anna at a historic pub, taking photos of anything I thought interesting in the drizzle.

St Mary Redcliffe

This was the pub we met in, the seventeenth century Llandoger Trow. A trow was a flat bottomed boat used to bring cargo from  Wales. The pub is supposed to have ben an inspiration for a pub in Treasure Island, and also where Daniel Defoe met and talked to the sailor who was the inspiration for Robinson Crusoe. Or that could all have been made up. But it was a nice place for a pint out of the rain.

Luka assured me how busy this place was with students in summer. Needed a little imagination for a wet day in February

Merchant Venturers Almshouses. Once a whole courtyard but some didn't survive wartime bombing intact so now really just one corner. And no longer almshouses for ancient seamen, but private homes. 

St Stephens Church

Not sure why the civic hall has unicorns on top of it...

Bristol Cathedral is very impressive. Anna and Luka had never been inside, and looked at me as if i had just invented nuclear fusion when I suggested we should. Sometimes you need visitors to get you to see the main tourist attractions that are on your doorstep and free. 

Its a great space inside - mostly Victorian Gothic revival extension of a much older and smaller medieval church 

Supposedly the last large gothic building in England, the Willis Memorial Tower built for the university

 and opened in 1925

Fittingly we finished Luka's sightseeing tour by a view over Brunel's great suspension bridge, by which time it was getting dark and very windy, so we headed back into Clifton village and settled in the Albion pub before going back out to find dinner. I called it "Luka's sightseeing tour" as he suggested all the places to take me to see, but had to defer to Anna for actual navigation between them! This amused me because this is what I am like on holiday - I suggest/decide what we should see but "delegate" to my companions to actually find them as I have no sense of direction

Finding a good place to eat on the Saturday night without having booked proved problematic. Our first choice of Nutmeg in Clifton had the snag that we could only have the table for 45 minutes. Not the leisurely meal I was hoping to treat the students to. So we headed into the City with a couple of Indian restaurants in mind, including the city branch of Nutmeg. There we manged to get a table, but a table for two. Although in fact there was space for all there of us. And we all enjoyed the meal. Very much top quality Indian, not a "curry house". And allowed us just to chat away happily as we had been all day so far. Luka and Anna are just the nicest, most chilled company.

After the excellent Indian meal at Nutmeg in the city we returned to Clifton where my hotel was and where they both had digs, stopping first at a cocktail bar which they had never been to before. Which did 2 cocktails for £10 student discount. Would have been rude not to make use of it. And Luka found it had a free pool table. He was in heaven. Well until I beat him....

Smart area for my hotel, Berkeley Square. Even got into bed in time to watch Match of the Day