Planning a Rare Staycation

So as we all pretty much know covid has ruined 2020 for all of us who enjoy travelling, all of us who enjoy pubs, and pretty much everyone who likes to leave the confines of their bedroom. It had already ruined my planned trip to Porto in March, before obliterating my dreams of a as Sandi Toksvig would put it Randy Scandi trip to Finland in June, and left me clamouring for places with stable air bridges in September. With Portugal opening up and then closing a few days later, cases rising in Italy, and most sensible countries not allowing Brits to enter we were left with very little choice other than to book a UK trip.

But where to go? The UK is an impressive country after all, which is something I periodically forget when I plan my trips, and watch the news. I've always fancied seeing the great university towns of Oxford and Cambridge or Durham, I've still never had a Geordie night out or seen the ex capitals of culture Glasgow and Liverpool, other than to visit perhaps the most impressive structure on earth, Goodison Park. In the end though we've set our sights on a dual trip to the beautiful Georgian town of Bath and Bristol the ​home of Blackbeard and Banksy. If I'm honest I didn't know a lot more about these cities before I started planning to visit them, but now I'm quite excited.

Bath looks absolutely stunning, the Abbey looks Gothic and that's always the right way to go, the Roman Baths look fascinating, and the whole city centre is a UNESCO World Heritage site, so you'd like to think it has something going for it, although sometimes I do think it's a little lazy to just make a whole city a World Heritage site some of it must be a bit shabby after all, but maybe I'll be proved wrong. At the time of writing this I've also found eleven bars I'm really keen to visit so that should be quite an experience, plus if I end up going to the Jane Austen Centre I may well want a few drinks afterwards.

Gorgeous as Bath looks though it's Bristol which has really caught my eye. Sure I've found eleven bars I fancy in Bath but there's loads more in Bristol, and I'm not sure I've ever seen so many brewpubs anywhere else before, so that's seriously exciting. It's not all about a massive pub crawl though, the Clifton Suspension Bridge over the River Avon looks ridiculously impressive, there's the works of Banksy, there's the war damaged Temple Church, and loads of naval history. I guess if one good thing is going to come from covid it may be the fact it's given me the ideal excuse to explore my own country far more than I might have if the whole world was still my oyster.