Bristol Balloon Fiesta 2017

Despite the fact that I have only just moved to Bristol, I have been to the Bristol Balloon Fiesta a few times (in 2016 and in 2014) with James. This weekend was my third time going and it was every bit as magical as the last two. Although the crowds seem to be growing year on year which does make it slightly harder to enjoy, I would still encourage anyone who hasn’t been to go along. It is slightly surreal but also kind of magical, and I certainly haven’t seen anything like it elsewhere.

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Bristol Harbour Festival

If you are going to come to Bristol, then it appears that the summer is the time to do it. There appears to be a different festival every weekend, celebrating everything from barbecues to street art. Which ones are most worth going to seems to vary depending on who you ask, but the two biggest seem to be the Balloon Fiesta and Bristol Harbour Festival. I’ve been to the Balloon Fiesta a couple of times before (and intend to go again this year) but I had never been to the Harbour Festival before. Although the forecast looked terrible, we decided to brave the weather and I’m really glad we did.

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The Giggling Squid, Bristol

One of the things I was most excited about with moving to Bristol was knowing the abundance of great restaurants there would be to try out. I’ve heard that Bristol is a fantastic city for foodies and as a food lover I couldn’t wait to get started so I was really pleased when James’ family suggested going to the Giggling Squid to celebrate the end of my first week in my new job.

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Aix-en-Provence

You’ll probably see that there is a common thread in my posts about the South of France… each of the places I have blogged about so far (Toulon and Nice) I’d like to return to, and Aix-en-Provence is no exception. We headed to Aix as soon as we arrived at Marseille airport so were slightly tired, definitely acclimatising to the heat and I was trying to get my brain in gear to speak French, but despite these less than ideal conditions I really enjoyed our brief time in Aix for several reasons.

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24 hours in Nice

24 hours isn’t a particularly long time to stay anywhere, let alone a city that you’ve wanted to visit for a significant amount of time. In a way I’m quite pleased I didn’t do too much research before we arrived as it meant that we chose to do things as they came and took the time to enjoy it rather than marching our way through a list of pre-planned activity. That said, there is clearly plenty more which can be done than we fitted into our 24 hours so hopefully another trip to Nice will be on the cards for the future…

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