Bristol Local Customs

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I wasn't too sure where to put this tip and it's not really something you can just go and see. I had lived in the East for about 24 years and you simply do not get the stunning sun sets that you get in the West. I've posted a few photos of the sky when driving home from work.
They are simply much more colourful and more oftenly pretty I feel, they make me stop in my tracks to view them and they change so quickly you'll never see the same sky twice.

The Bristol International Balloon Fiesta, Europe’s largest annual Hot Air Balloon event, now in its 34th year (2012) attracts 500,000 visitors during the show's four days and is free to attend. Teams from the UK and other parts of the world bring their hot air balloons to the site and participate in mass launches where up to 100 balloons may take off at a time, made twice a day, at 6am and 6pm, subject to weather conditions. Running alongside the event are over 250 trade stands and caterers, and a variety of other entertainments.

Don’t miss the fantastic Nightglow displays when balloons are inflated and glow to synchronised music after dark, followed by a spectacular fireworks display. These take place at approximately 9:30 pm on the Thursday and Saturday evening.

2012 – August 9-12
Thursday: 12:00 midday to 10:30 pm
Friday: 6:00 am to 9:00 pm
Saturday: 6:00 am to 10:30 pm
Sunday: 6:00 am to 6:00 pm

Admission Free

Ashton Court, Bristol

There's an astonishing amount of graffiti going on in Bristol....... Banksy is just the famous one. (There'll probably be a banksy heritage trail before long, and now the Council will clean up Banksys that have been defaced.)

Stokes Croft, which features several hoardings that are regularly repainted with spectacular murals is now a tourist attraction: it's a rare occasion to walk down it and not encounter somebody taking photographs of the work on display. And postcards featuring the various artists are readily available.

The clock on the Exchange building in Corn Street is unusual in having two minute hands, one showing London time and another showing Bristol time.

Bristol is around 2º 35' west of Greenwich, so Bristol time is a little over ten minutes behind London time. The London hand is the junior, only being added when the coming of the railways made a unified time system for the whole country a necessity.

The exact time used to be of great importance in Bristol. In any port the tides are important: the tidal range at Bristol is the second highest in the world, and there's a lot of Avon to negociate before you reach the open sea.

Horology fiends should also take a look at the clock on the Baroque tower of All Saints church opposite the end of Corn Street. Only the usual two hands, but an amusing pair of quarter-jacks, carved and painted figures who swing out and whack out the chimes every quarter of the hour.

The Clifton Suspension Bridge is a spectacular engineering feat serving little vital function: it's not that it doesn't go anywhere, it's simply that no-one needs to go where it leads often enough to justify such an effort. As such, it's a most appropriate choice for Bristol's signature image. For the city is absolutely rammed with bridges of one kind or another, and many push engineering ingenuity to the point of mannerism or beyond while being hardly necessary. And of course there's the Horned Bridge, which is in a category all of it's own.

Since the watereway is a working harbour, many of the bridges have to move to allow ships through. Sadly, although we have bascule bridges and swing bridges, we don't have a transporter bridge or a pontoon bridge (to complete the collection).... but nowhere's perfect.

I like bridges.....which is why I am (very slowly) adding them to my tips, generally under the rather inappropriate category of ' off the beatebn path'.

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On the May Day bank holiday (the first Monday after May 1st), you may see these strange people roaming around Broadmead - they are Morris Dancers, and the one that looks like a walking shrub, that's Jack i' the Green!

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The tradition of aerosol art and graffiti exploded in the US gang culture of the 1970's. Bristol was one of the first cities in the UK to embrace graffiti in a big way. Since London has become bristling with CCTV cameras, Bristol is again an important city. It is filled with amazing, intelligent and witty aerosol art. Often it brightens-up sad neglected spaces. World famous graffiti artist, Banksy, comes from Bristol. Many other famous UK graffiti artists started here - Sickboy, Copyright, Cheba, TCF...

Graffiti changes and is replaced often. There are several locations in Bristol with amazing street art. For example, Stokes Croft, the self-styled 'cultural quarter'. And the Dame Emily Park south of the River Avon, on Dean Lane. Bristol City Council has reluctantly decided to preserve Banksy's existing paintings (though they are not doing a very good job - several have been destroyed!!).

So, if you stray away from the historic city centre, keep a look out for Bristol's special culture.

After the Bristol harbour lost its role as the most important element of Bristol's economy the city started looking for other possibilities. In the second half of the 20th Century one of the most important industries in the city was the aviation industry, located in nearby Filton. A supersonic aircraft - Concorde - was produced here and in Toulouse. The last flight of Concorde hapenned on November 26, 2003 when Concorde 216 flew from Heathrow to its final base in Bristol. After reaching the supersonic speed over the north Atlantic the aircraft flew over Clifton Suspension Bridge where only 600 people were allowed on to the structure to watch the flypast.

There is an initiative to build a museum at Filton that would have Concorde as its main attraction. Meanwhile, Bristol takes part in creation of another aviation icon - the wings of the superjumbo A380 are made in Filton.