bristol, baby // day one

as you read over the weekend, boyfriend and i were invited up (?) to bristol last weekend to spend a night at the mercure holland house hotel and spa. when someone offers you that, you definitely don't say no! we booked the following monday off work, and headed off early on the sunday, bound for victoria coach station at the ungodly hour of 7am; sunday morning's don't usually look like that for me.

that's when it all turned to shit. we got to the train station to find that all the trains from our stations had either been cancelled, or the entire station had been shut for the day - despite us checking the travel times the night before. panicked and not wanting to miss our coach, we grabbed a mini cab from outside the station for the tidy sum of £25 - a lovely little kick in the teeth before we'd even made it outside of london. thankfully the coach trip itself was fairly nondescript. fields and motorways passed with the hours, but before we knew it, we'd arrived - and 20 minutes early to boot! we took a walk through the main city centre (read : primark) before grabbing a coffee and making our way to the hotel.

we passed through castle gardens and st. peter's - a bombed out church which remains now in memory of those lost during the blitz on our walk, and then up to st. mary's - a beautifully gothic church that reminded me a lot of notre damn. we wandered in, but i felt really odd being in there - it was a sunday after all, and there were a handful of parishioners still floating around from the earlier mass... we slipped out the side door.

bonus points as the hotel was literally across the street - we could even see the beautiful thing out of our window! after we'd dumped our bags in our room, we took a wander along the harbour and the sidewalk markets before heading off to find the whereabouts of a stunning pink house we'd seen on our travels. turned out to be an italian restaurant in a dead end street! we were hungry - not for italian - so slipped into the local sam smith's pub for some grub and a delicious strawberry beer. it was deeeelish.

we wandered back via sainsbury's where we'd grabbed some essentials for our big night in bristol; popcorn and pink wine! by the time we'd made it back to the room it was almost time for our massage, and we were already so knackered and full that a lie down was exactly what we were after!

it was underwhelming to say the least.

afterwards, we headed back to the room for a wee kip before our dinner reservation (omg yum!), then literally, back to the room for an early night. rock n roll! we were soooo damn tired from our early morning frustrations and day wandering in the sun, that the pink wine and pop corn just had to bloody wait!