SOLO EUROPE IV: DAYS 5-6 [BRISTOL & CARDIFF]

after spending the morning in bath, i took the train to bristol. the train is only between 10-20 minutes long. the purpose was to visit a single museum. before researching, the only thing i knew about bristol is that it was the filming location & setting for uk skins.

after arriving to the station, i stopped at a chain coffeehouse & walked to the old dockyards. the weather was good & the sun was out (rain would be in my near future). the dockyards have been repurposed as a public space with businesses & a few museums.

along the way there was a googly eye horse statue

the old cargo cranes (c. 1950s)

a tugboat with tons of rubber duckies

the reason i wanted to visit bristol was to go to brunnel's ss great britain, a ship museum. i am not a big boat person, but i like visiting a well done museum & this is one of the ones that i read was good. the ss britain was the largest passenger ship at the time it was built (1845, in bristol) & the first to be both built of iron & use a screw propeller. the ss britain was also the first iron ship to cross the atlantic (traveling to nyc). the ship was later used to transport emigrants to australia & had sailed to san francisco. 

the dry dock. i was slipping and sliding as it was slippery. also the humidity was very high.

next to the boat is a museum that tells the history of the ship. there is a fun area where you can dress up. i was one of the few young people visiting. most were senior citizens (it was a weekday). i saw some old british dudes have fun dressing up in the costumes with top hats. 

after the museum, you can walk around the top of the ship (the weather deck) & inside the boat. the inside is recreated to look as it would as a victorian passenger ship. i really enjoyed exploring the ship & going up and down the narrow staircases. very titanic vibes.

you can see the little a-frame greenhouses. in the victorian era it was cool to have exotic plants & this is how they moved them across continents.

the resident cow. 

and the resident cat sailor

the promenade deck.

the steerage. some of these rooms had audio (like people talking or puking). there was even a quarantine steerage room.

the first class dining saloon

included in the museum is a building that sahres the story of brunnell (the man who got the ship built). this part i found less interesting, hence no photos. ai stopped at the m shed cafeteria for an easy meal on the way back to the station. i met a nice worker who was from cardiff, but worked in bristol. i told her i was surprised as she did not have a welsh accent & she said she was also sad she did not have one. it seems a lot of people in wales work in bristol. after eating my brie and mushroom toastie, i made my way back to the railway station.

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the next day was spent in cardiff, my only day in wales. this whole day was rainy & icky. this was the first day of my trip where it did reach a point where i was feeling pretty miserable as i could not stay dry & had a lot of walking to do. i first took the train from bath, which was about an hour. it was a busy as this train only has 3 carriages. from there, i had to take a 45 minute bus ride to the neighboring village of st fagan to visit the folk historical open air museum. the museum is a collection of buildings that display how the welsh have lived in the past. there are 40 structures brought in from throughout the country. a cool thing was almost all the workers spoke welsh. i first enjoyed the cafe with a cortado & welsh cakes (when in wales). it tasted like a crumbly flower cookie with raisins.

sheep!

the red building is the kennixton farmhouse (c. 1610). wikipedia says the color would have been from blood & lyme & may had been used to ward off witches.

nant wallter cottage (c. 1770)

some of the buildings had real fires going

a family grocer that was open from 1880-1973.

the grocery store is staged to look as it would have in the 1920s

the vulcan (c. 1853), a hotel & public house 

st. teilo's church (c. 1520)

the inside of the church

part of a workers cottage for miners (wales was a big mining country)

i am always intrigued with fake food.

a cool seasonal arrangement of produce & flowers gathered from the museum grounds.

st fagans castle, an elizabeathan mansion from the 16th century. it is the original building on the grounds. in wwi it was used as a hospital.

after visiting the musuem, i did not have much time as i wanted to make my bus back to the city center (the bus was hourly). i did have time to scarf down some food & visit the gift shop. the cafeteria has more traditional welsh food. i had beans, chips, & glamorgan sausage. it is a type of vegeterian sausage with cheese, leeks, & bread crumbs. i did not even realize until doing my research now that it is a vegetarian sausage. it was probably my favorite sausage during this trip.

glamorgan sausage, a traditional welsh dish.

i then took the bus back to the city center. in hindsight, i probably would have enjoyed my time more if i went to the dockyard area, but the city center was where the city & national museums were. i did end up visiting 2 that were free, but they were small & i did not find very interesting. i walked around the city center looking at monuments & landmarks. i did not see any souvenir shops so other than a postcard from the museum, i did not get anything in wales. it consistently rained hard so i just dealt with walking in the rain. i was surprised to not see a single reference to dr. who. honestly for this part i was pretty miserable as i was wet & cold. i did not stay as long as planned. funny enough, it did not rain in bath.

i did stop into a cafe for a warm espresso and a pistachio chocolate mousse cake (i really do like a nero).

cardiff has a few old victorian & edwardian arcades

after being completely drenched, i returned to the train station to hop on the next train back to bath. more on bath in the last post.