"Bristol - Prepare for the unexp ..." a Bristol Travel Page by Airpunk

I really love to be in Rotterdam which is - for me - the city of the unexpected. But it was more unexpected for me to find a city with so many similar features. Bristol's town center has gone through a lot of changes in the past decades, due to the effects of WWII as well as the changes in sea trade business. So Bristol became the perfect playground for urbanistic experiments. But unlike Rotterdam, Bristol still has a large variety of architectural styles to offer - from gothic churches to glass and steel. Many museums call Bristol their home and some nice events take place here too.

I made two daytrips to Bristol which were of course not enough to explore the city. I focused on architectural highlights of the old town, a walk along river avon to the Clifton Suspension Bridge and the harbour festival. Check out my travellogue - and of course my tips - to see what I have seen in this time.

Bristol (which means: "town at the bridge") became important after the norman conquest, when a castle was built. It was the sea trading with Irelnd which made the town grow. In the 14th century it was England's third largest city after London and York. The "black death" stopped Bristol's uprise, but it gained its importance back when England started to colonize the new world. But from today's point of view, we would condemn Bristol's new prosperity: Bristol became a center of slave trading. In the 19th century, Liverpool became more important as a harbour town, while Bristol was a center of - at that time - modern technology projects with Isambard Kingdom Brunel. A s aharbour town, the city was bombed in WWII by the Germans, which led to the destrcution of larger parts of Bristol's town center. Today, Bristol has changed to be a modern, future-oriented town.