Avebury

Near Stonehenge is a town called Avebury, which has it's own stone circles. Unlike Stonehenge, you can go right up to the stones and a lot of the stones are in people's back yards. They believe that the stone circles are about 5000 years old. It's the largest stone circles in England with the outer circle having a diameter of 1,088 feet and the inner circles having a diameter of342 feet.

Some of the rocks are really big.

Some of the stones in some one's back yard.

One of the things I love about England is most of the street signs look like this. Very quaint. Although, they can be pretty well hidden and it can make it hard to navigate the city.

Jeeves

Our rental car has a built in navigation system. It's really cool. It pops out of the dashboard and the controls are right next to the wind shield wipers. It's actually really cool. The voice of the navigation is this deep, proper British voice, so I have named the navigation Jeeves. We like Jeeves. He helps out a lot, especially getting around all of the round abouts and bear rights or left, but sometimes he yells at us. Once, Gavin pressed the give guidance button because we weren't on the route and couldn't figure out how to get back on the highlighted route. Jeeves answered in an angry voice, "Please refer to the map". He was done with our incompetency for the night.

Here's Jeeves.

Here's our rental car for now. We may trade it in for something smaller. It's a beast to get around the narrow streets. It's a brand new Volvo. It only had about 200 miles on it when we rented it.

The car has a cool trick. Once you lock it, the side mirrors tuck into the side of the car.

Poll Result

Everyone voted that Gavin would get the accents first!  And, you would be right.  Gavin is already picking up the accent.  There are certain words that he has picked up already and has an accent for. Saying hello to people, the word repository, and a few others.  He is well on his way.   Bets on how long until he has a full accent?

Clifton Suspension Bridge

One of the things Bristol is most known for is the Clifton Suspension bridge. It connects Bristol to Somerset over the Avon Gorge. It was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who also designed the train station and several other things here. Each tower is designed a little different. It is 702 feet long and 234 feet above the gorge.

A weird tunnel on the road along the gorge.

A view of the Avon river heading out to sea.

Proof that I actually walked across it.

We had a recommendation to eat at the Avon Gorge Hotel, which has an incredible view of the bridge. We ate at a small pub called the White Lion where Gavin had his first pastie.

9-15-2010

Wednesday I went to a farmer's market in St. Nicholas Square. Every week, people from the near by country side come and sell their fresh meats and cheese and other goods.

St. Nicholas Square is a bunch of markets and stalls, with some really unique stuff for sale.

I rode one of those hop-on hop-off bus tours of the city. The tour guide was a little hard to understand with the accent of the speaker, but it was still a lot of fun.

I mentioned earlier that Wallace and Grommit live here. The animation studio is here as well. This building is the studio where the cartoon is made, as well as Chicken Run.

If you look in the window, you can see Grommit.

This is a picture of the Clifton Suspension Bridge (in the distance) as well as the Avon Gorge. Back in the day, merchants would have to navigate the twisty river to get goods to Bristol.

This is a view to the north, I think. North west, maybe. You can see a big ship yard and the faint mountains in the distance is Wales.

This house was built by a rich wine merchant. He built the tower so he could watch for his ships coming up the Avon river.

This area is "The Downs" There are over 50 soccer fields here. The houses here are gorgeous. They were built by rich merchants. I totally want to live here.

One of the houses.

This is an academic hall that is now owned by the University of Bristol. I think it's now the music department. Charles Dickens gave lectures here.

This is the Hole in the Wall pub. Robert Lewis Stevenson, the guy who wrote Treasure Island stayed here and based the character of Long John Silver on the chef there.

Row homes in the city.

View of the city from the harbor area.

This is the Temple Meads Train Station. This is where Gavin takes the train to work everyday. It is the longest covered train station in the world.

The main entrance.

This is the leaning tower of Bristol. It was actually built leaning and when they were rebuilding the city after the WWII bombings, they wanted to tear it down because it was leaning. However, the citizens said not to because it had already been leaning for 500 years.

This is one of the student buildings for the University of Bristol. It was built in the 1970s and was voted the most ugly building in Bristol.

This is a square near the oldest original street in the city, Christmas Steps.

Gavin got to ride the bus on Friday, so some of the pictures are his. :)

9-14-2010

After Gavin's first day of work, I met him at the train station so we could go get some dinner together. We had asked some people where the best fish and chips were and they mentioned this little place near the Christmas Steps shopping area that we went to. They weren't the best, but it was an enjoyable dinner.

The next day, I went out wandering in Bristol. This is a street near Queen's Square.

Queen's Square.

A view of the harbour.

The giant mirrored ball in Millennium Square. You can see me taking the picture in it.

This is the Council House, which is the government center for the city.

The main entrance.

Each end of the building has a unicorn on top.

This is Bristol Cathedral. The Abbey here was built in the 1100's, but only ruins remain of that. The current Cathedral was built around the 1500's.

The ceiling. I wasn't really supposed to take pictures, but a sweet guide let me take a few to show my family. It reminded me a lot of the National Cathedral in DC.

I went to the Bristol Museum to get out of the rain. It was a lot of fun, but a little randomly put together.

They were doing an Egypt exhibit, where they had several different tombs on display.

This is a lure fish. Ugly thing, isn't he?

This was a sea monster that was pregnant. You can see the fetus by the big arrow at the bottom.

They had the first box plane in Bristol hanging in the main entrance.

This was a picture of Bristol drawn in 1717.

This was a Giant Irish Deer. It was about double my height. I wouldn't want to run into him in the wild.

Someone made a dinosaur of Bristol, including the suspension bridge.

Gypsy van.

This is china from China from the 1100s.

A bird of paradise.

A model of a dodo bird.

This is the Willis building at the University of Bristol. It was right next door to the museum.

Park Street. It's the "hip" shopping center in Bristol. Plus, there are a lot of clubs and bars here, although there are clubs and bars everywhere here. :)

A cute street right off of Park Street.

There is a street artist in Bristol named Bansky and his art is all over the city. This is one of his more famous pieces, minus the blue paint.

After meeting Gavin at the train station, we went to a pub for dinner. The fish and chips were much better this time.

Gavin's work is going well. We had a little mishap when one of his id cards got misplaced, but we found it. He might have left in it the computer at work... :)