A Trip To Bristol: Shaun in the City & Climbing Cabot Tower

Time for another summer Nice Day Out flashback!

I love Bristol and miss living there and don't get back half as often as I'd like thanks to the steep train fares (I miss my student railcard, too!). This summer I realised it had been over a year since my last visit so I splashed out some cash on some advanced tickets and booked myself three Bristol day trips.

I spent two of the days catching up with old friends and meeting up with new ones, but the third was free for me to do whatever I wanted in the city. After a bit of umming and ahhing I decided to spend the day following the Shaun in the City trail.

I'd really enjoyed the London leg of the trail earlier in the summer. All the Shaun the Sheep sculptures were delightful, tracking them down was like going on a treasure hunt, and the sheep-hunting was a great way to tour the city (and get some exercise!)

I got into Bristol nice and early and spent a long, busy, happy day working my way round the map - I did a lot of walking and managed to see 31 out of the 70 Bristol Shauns (told you it was a busy day!)

 

 

It was a gorgeous, sunny day - perfect weather for a day wandering round the city, ticking Shauns off the map and enjoying the sights along the way. The bright colours of the harbourside were looking particularly lovely in the sunshine!

 

 

I also squeezed in a quick visit to the Bristol Museum & Art Gallery (one of my favourite places in the city) to see this awesome temporary exhibition, and made my first ever visit to the nearby Georgian House Museum. At the Georgian House you can step back in time and see how the house might have looked in the 1790s - it's free to visit and well worth doing so! 

Another Bristol attraction I'd never visited before was Cabot Tower. The tower was built in the late 1800s and looms over the city from the top of Brandon Hill (a lovely park, conveniently located near the museums). When I actually lived in Bristol I wasn't that interested in sightseeing so I'd never been to Cabot Tower and had no idea you could actually climb it until I read Polly's blog post about her own visit earlier this year.

 

The landscaping around the tower is totally charming with winding paths, a little waterfall, and lots of semi-hidden spaces to explore. Some of the paths up to the tower are very steep!

The views across the park and the city are rather special from the base of the tower...

... but if you're feeling brave you can climb up the tower for some even better views. Cabot Tower is 105 feet (32 metres) high and has two viewing platforms. The higher platform is apparently 334 feet (102 metres) above sea level!

The spiral staircase up the tower is quite steep and narrow - you have to get quite cosy with anyone going up/down the stairs in the other direction! - but the views are wonderful. It was delightful to spot so many familiar places and to look down at places I'd visited earlier that very day as I followed the Shaun in the City trail.

P.S. You can read more about Cabot Tower and see its opening times here. The Shaun in the City trail has now finished but you can read more about it here and buy lots of Shaun-themed goodies in the fundraising shop here. Until late December you can also buy raffle tickets for the chance to win a giant Christmas-themed Shaun sculpture!