Bristol, Cardiff and Storm Callum

Bristol is a quick hour south of Gloucester, but what a difference an hour makes.

In every European city we've visited, we've enjoyed the (usually) beautiful and vibrant pedestrian-only shop lined streets, associated with a square or cathedral or along the river (always a river in every town).  Gloucester's city center, however, was visually anemic and lacked energy.  The central tourist shopping area felt equivalent to being at a Sears and Radio Shack anchored mall. 
The exception was the three cute stores that are the home of The Tailor of Gloucester (Beatrix Potter), but in terms of tourist draw,  Beatrix is no Harry.

Bristol, in contrast was vibrant.  The streets were filled with art, diverse/striking buildings and university students. The central core, though, was not just a line up of "quaint shopping lanes", although there were plenty of pedestrian only shopping areas;  winding, picturesque streets as well as large, open boulevards, even the Tesco Express (the ubiquitous English super market chain, similar to a 7/11 but with produce)  looked hipper. Rather the city center was made up of the boardwalk/piers along the River Avon that was lined with museums and shops.  Two large squares (Queens and College Green) were surrounded by stately buildings and FULL of people just enjoying the unusually warm end of summer day.At dusk, the food trucks left and the central area  filled with people drinking and picnicking along the river banks.

Compared to many European cities we have been to, Bristol seems to be more effective merging new buildings with historic and remodeled ones. (Bristol was heavily bombed in WWII.)
The Bristol Museum of Natural History and Art is in one of the those classic old buildings had a nice collection of both art and animals, a good place to spend an afternoon.

But the best art was in the streets.  Banksy is reportedly from Bristol, and his early pieces are scattered throughout town. It was kind of a scavenger hunt as we explored the city.  This is "The girl with the pierced eardrum", the earring is an outdoor security alarm, a parody of Vemeer's the girl with the pearl earring. Street art/graffiti was everywhere as were walking tours to guide you.

We walked through the very nice Clifton area, past the multicolored houses to the Clifton suspension bridge, an engineering marvel completed in 1864 which spans the breath- taking Avon Gorge.

All impressive, Bristol was just a high energy positive feeling city. The energy continued into the late night; from our 4th floor attic Air B and B, we could hear a boisterous, drunken choir singing bar-songs.

On to Cardiff.

Our travel strategy has been to set up a home base somewhere and then do day trips from there.  The so called hub and spoke method.  This has worked well until we ran into Atlantic Storm Callum (which had been preceded this season by Storm Ali and Storm Bronagh).  From our base in Cardiff, Wales we had planned to visit the west coast of Wales and the mountainous mid Wales area.  Both normally accessible within a few hours by train and bus.  The heavy rains and wind, however, shut down the rails and roads, so we walked around Cardiff and assessed the storm damage locally, which included a crested river with a flooded pier area.   Unbeknownst to us, Cardiff, particularly the flooded pier area, is the site for some of the filming the TV shows Doctor Who and Torchwood,  fans may enjoy these (time portal?) pictures.

To stay dry we hit up the National Museum of Wales and as with most museums here, were introduced to an artist we had never heard of and liked, in this case the Welsh landscape artist Kyffin Williams.  There was also an exhibit on poppies- in drugs, art, mythology, symbol of war/peace- which was relevant for us and our spring/summer garden.

Finally, after the rain stopped we discovered mushroom Stonehenge. 

This week's photo of topless old man looking out window contemplating his life: Banksy "Well hung lover"