Stourhead

On our way back from our minibreak in Bournemouth, my parents and I stopped off at a National Trust property we hadn't been to for a long time: Stourhead.

Stourhead is considered to have one of the most beautiful gardens in the country, so I was quite excited to explore it again and to take some pictures for this blog!

The main part of the garden is based around a large lake, but there are some other things to see on the way down to the lake from the property's entrance, including this pretty little cottage and church.

Once you get to the lake, you are greeted with amazing views of the Bristol Cross and the Palladian Bridge, with the Pantheon in the distance.

The garden was inspired by Greek and Roman mythology, and the route that visitors follow around the lake was designed to represent Aeneas's descent into the underworld.

The entire route is dotted with beautiful temples and other interesting attractions, and as you walk around, you discover a new scenic view at every turn, such as these ones of the Temple of Apollo...

...and this one of the Temple of Flora.

After I'd been walking round the lake for a while, a stone archway suddenly appeared in front of me. I passed through it, and then through another one, and I was inside the Grotto! This was one of my favourite parts of the garden, as it had statues of a god and a goddess inside, and its atmosphere was quite spooky and mysterious.

Shortly after I came out the other side of the Grotto, I found the Gothic Cottage...

...and a very short distance later, I finally arrived at the most iconic temple in the garden: the Pantheon. Inspired by the building of the same name in Rome, it is designed to be a temple to all the gods, and inside you can find statues depicting several of them. When I was inside it, I did have the sense, just for a little while, that I was on holiday somewhere in Italy!

As I made my way along the other side of the lake, back towards my starting point, there was one final sight that took me by surprise. This stunning waterfall was very peaceful both to look at and to listen to.

Once I'd finished exploring the garden, I went to take a quick look at Stourhead's house before we went home. It's a very large Palladian mansion, with a gateway that looks a lot like a castle.

The trip to Stourhead was a nice way to round off what was overall a very enjoyable minibreak. During those two days away, I visited a tropical garden full of palm trees, and swam in the sea off a beach with golden sand, in addition to exploring this garden with its temples that are reminiscent of Italy and Greece. And all this with temperatures in the high 20s! Not too bad for a British holiday...

Since we got back, I've managed to fit in one more little trip during my time off, and I'll be writing about that next...

A Minibreak in Bournemouth

Earlier this week I got back from a couple of days in Bournemouth with my parents. We only spent one night there, because of difficulties finding an affordable hotel that everyone liked, but we managed to squeeze quite a lot into the time we had.

The main reason we went there was so we could swim in the sea - the last time I'd swam in the sea was in Chile in March 2020 and the last time I'd swam at all was in July 2020 in our local outdoor pool. Unfortunately, the pool had implemented a special booking system to deal with Covid, which actually had the effect of making it far more crowded than it had been in normal times, so swimming there wasn't a safe or enjoyable experience at all, and we haven't been back since. This is a shame for me, as I love swimming, and I don't feel like I've had a proper summer without spending time in the sea, or at least in a pool. Fortunately, during this holiday we had the chance to spend time in both!

The only real downside of the trip was that the hotel where we stayed wasn't anywhere near as good as we'd been expecting; my room was very small and the shower didn't work. But on the other hand, at least it was right by the beach.

On the afternoon that we arrived (after a long journey passing sights including Avebury stone circle and Salisbury Cathedral), we settled into our rooms, and then my mum and I went down to the hotel pool for our pre-booked swimming slot. We had about 10-15 minutes with the pool all to ourselves, but then more and more people started arriving, as it turned out that the hotel had allowed around 10 guests to book the same slot (which we'd thought was just for us). This was a bit disappointing, especially because the pool wasn't particularly big. But it was nice just to be able to swim again, and also to relax in the jacuzzi!

Later on, we went for a little walk through the town, firstly to the beach and then to Lower Gardens, a park that we'd visited last time we were in Bournemouth (in 2019). The whole area was absolutely heaving with tourists, as it was one of the hottest days of the year, and because of all the travel restrictions preventing people (especially us younger people, who are last in the queue for the vaccine, and therefore have fewer rights to travel) from going on holiday abroad. It was definitely quite a different vibe from two years ago!

Afterwards, we had a very tasty dinner at the 1805 Chinese restaurant. By the time we'd finished the meal, it was later than we'd expected, but there was still another place I wanted to visit before the day was done.

As the sun was going down, I made the mile-long journey to the Tropical Gardens in the west side of the town. This place had particularly intrigued me when I had discovered it while searching for info about Bournemouth on the internet, because I really liked the idea of having some kind of experience of a tropical beach holiday whilst being confined to the UK.

The garden was small but it did not disappoint. It had plenty of palm trees, in addition to other plants from many different parts of the world, including Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, Mexico and Chile! And the views from the garden of the beach below were beautiful, especially because it was sunset. Being there was when I finally started to feel that "holiday feeling".

And the holiday vibes continued into the next day! My mum and I got up early and went down to the beach at around 7:30 in order to avoid the crowds. The weather was already quite nice even at that time in the morning, and although the sea was a little cold, it was an amazing experience to swim in it. This was definitely the highlight of the holiday, and I wish I was back there already! Hopefully, I'll have the chance to swim in the sea again soon, wherever that may happen.

After breakfast, it was time to pack up and leave Bournemouth. But it wasn't the end of the holiday yet! En route back to our village, we stopped off to spend a few hours at another beautiful place, and I'll be writing about it very soon...

Bristol: Part Two

Last week I went on my first solo travel trip since March last year, spending a day seeing the sights of Bristol. I'd seen a few interesting places, including the Christmas Steps, during a trip there with my parents in August last year. But I felt like there was a lot I still hadn't seen, so I decided to take the opportunity to go back again, now that I'm on my summer holidays and have more free time.

Bristol isn't the easiest city to get around; it's too big to easily explore on foot, and it doesn't have a metro or tram system like other big cities do. However, it does have a bus system known as "metrobus", which as the name suggests, is a bus network that (in theory) functions like a metro network. I chose to use this system to go between Bristol Temple Meads train station and other places in the city, and it worked out alright for me. It was a bit hard to find some of the bus stops (the train station one was about 5 minutes away from the station entrance) and the buses didn't always arrive on time. But I managed to get to all of the places I wanted to go to, so overall it was a success.

First of all, I took the bus to The Centre, a part of the city by the harbour, where you can find a statue of Neptune.

From there, I could walk to College Green, where I found one of the sights I'd most been looking forward to seeing: Bristol Cathedral. This Gothic building is very impressive to look at from both the outside and the inside, and is extremely reminiscent of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. Inside there are toilets, a café and a little garden. (But sadly, I didn't see Quasimodo or any talking gargoyles!)

Next I walked to Cabot Circus mall to find some lunch and to pick up a couple of things in the shops. On my way there, I noticed lots of people looking at the sky, and looked up to see what was so interesting. It was a surprise to see a plane drawing smiley faces in the sky! I didn't know what it was all about at the time, but the next day I read an article which said that it was organised by a group of school children to say "thank you" to their teachers!

After lunch I got back on the metrobus and travelled away from the city centre, getting off at Spike Island to find some more interesting sights. The bus stop really seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, but after I walked along a few quiet, nondescript streets, I found a little courtyard with something very special on one of its walls...

The Girl with the Pierced Eardrum is the world-famous Bristolian street artist Banksy's take on Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring, and it was quite amazing and surreal to be mere metres away from this work of art, and to be the only person looking at it.

Following a few minutes' contemplation, I went around the next street corner and was met with some incredible views. I had arrived at the harbourside area, where many boats are located, including the famous ship SS Great Britain, which travelled to many places all over the world, including the Falkland Islands and Australia, during the 19th century. At the moment it's not possible to see much of the ship apart from the very top of the sails without buying a ticket. 

But that didn't bother me much, because for me, the most impressive part of the harbourside area was the views of the rows of colourful houses on the other side of the water. They brought back memories of visiting Valparaíso (another port city known for its street art and colourful buildings), though you could also say there was something of the Nordic countries about them. In addition to the houses, I could see Cabot Tower and a little corner of the Clifton Suspension Bridge, so it was without a doubt quite an amazing panorama.

To sum up, I had a fantastic day exploring the city of Bristol. It really is a unique place, filled with culture, art, and a range of architecture that evokes different places from all over the world. Spending time there was a real escape from the very quiet village life I've been stuck in for the last year and a half.

Luckily, two days after my day in Bristol, I got to go on another little adventure, when I went with my parents for a minibreak at the beach! I'll be writing all about it very soon...

Read about Bristol: Part One here!