Bristol; Monday, 22 January, 2007

After checking out I walked through the city centre to the bus station and caught the bus out to Glastonbury. More famously known for it's music festival, the town itself is a pleasant small English town, with the stunning remains of a Benedictine monastery, ruined after the dissolution of the monasteries following the reformation. Only a few parts of the buildings remain, but those that do give an impression of what the site would have looked like.

Glastonbury is also famous for its Tor, a large hill over 150meters higher than the surrounding countryside, topped with the tower of a chapel. It had been my intention to climb this to take the views, however, the weather over the preceding few days had been les than impressive, and the ground was so muddy that I decided I probably didn't want to travel back home looking like I had actually been to Glastonbury!

The final thing that sealed my decision was the fact the bus was sitting at the bus stop as I left the abbey grounds, so I caught it back to Wells, where I had a look around the cathedral there before catching the bus onto Bath.

My reason for going to Bath was to try and put some of the daemons of my previous trip behind me. And it started well, walking up towards Poultney bridge there was a stunning Rainbow arching through the sunlight and clouds over the city centre. Unfortunately, the water it was reflecting was heading my direction in the form of large hail stones and so after 20 minutes of wandering round Bath I was soaking wet and freezing cold, much as I was when I had previously visited. Utterly disheartened, I trudged (and squelched) back to the bus station to catch the bus back into Bristol.

By the time I got back to Bristol and had a late lunch/early dinner, it was getting dark, and I had just under two hours until my train. As I had a day ticket for the bus I caught one back out to Clifton and took some photos of the bridge in the dark, where it is even more impressive lit up than it is during the day.

I walked back to the bus stop, caught the bus back into town, picked up my luggage from the Ibis and, being very lazy, and unwilling to get lost again, caught the bus back round to Temple Meads station.