Foreward:

• My husband and I are returning to the UK and Ireland again in June.
• Our mantra has been "Public Transport or Bust". We have never driven in the UK, and we've cycled a lot of Ireland over repeated trips. If we are done with the cycling because we are old, we're sure not taking up driving on the left.
• In both Ireland and England, we have been combining our love of local music, my ancestry investigations, and our dedication to IPA beers.
• I've already booked our flights and many of our hotels.
• I have yet to buy transport passes but I'll probably do at least a senior South West BritRail as we've done for the past two years.
• We are returning to a few places we've been (Falmouth, Galway and Dublin) and will be adding new stops.
• I will be returning here for queries about various spots.

This year's basic itinerary is shaking out this way:

Day 1--Land at Heathrow. Head for Paddington for train. Head towards, of all places, Teignemouth (will explain in another post).
Day 2--Head to Falmouth to return to the Sea Shanty Festival for the third time.
Day 3--Sea Shanty Festival.
Day 4--Sea Shanty Festival
Day 5--Head to Bridgwater (will explain in another post)
Day 6--Head to Bristol (subject of this post)
Day 7--Stay Bristol
Day 8--Stay Bristol
Day 9--Stay Bristol
Day 10--Head to Cardiff for The Welsh Association of Male Choirs
Day 11--Fly Cardiff to Cork
Day 12--Stay Cork/Cobh
Day 13--Stay Cork/Cobh
Day 14--Move on to Killarney
Day 15--Stay Killarney--take local tour of Ring of Kerry
Day 16--Stay Killarney--take local tour of Dingle Peninsula
Day 17--Leave for Galway
Day 18--Galway
Day 19--Galway
Day 20--Leave for Dublin
Day 21--Dublin
Day 22--Dublin
Day 23--Dublin flight to US

My husband is a 3-night stay type of guy, and I plan accordingly. Sometimes we have to do a one-night or two-night, but generally, we stay longer. Bases are important.

We knew we wanted to see the Cardiff, Wales festival and we knew we wanted to head to Ireland. So we were looking for where to head after our Falmouth Sea Shanty Festival to bridge those events. Bristol seemed to be perfect, even though it's a place I never visited in my teenage whirlwind tour of England with my driving-obsessed parents. I am unfamiliar with it, although I see it getting much more recognition now.

Right now, I'm breaking up our rail trip between Falmouth and Bristol in Bridgwater because that's where my father's maternal line moved after their childhoods in Honiton, Devon. I want to check it out. But perhaps we should head straight to Bristol and daytrip back Having a rail pass will mean that any venture from Bristol should be easy. I'm thinking that we can at least do Bath from there, and I'm interested in other suggestions.

Again, has anyone based themselves in Bristol and ventured forth? All ears.

Thanks for any help...
AZ

Sounds like a great trip.

Well, since I've stolen a lot of my itinerary from you, Macross, that makes sense!

I live near Bristol, so know the local area well. I don't think many people would suggest spending 3 nights in Bridgwater. It is a small town which lost a major industry some years ago, and whose current prosperity is largely based on distribution (it is on the M5, the main north/south motorway) and on the nearby construction of a large nuclear power station. However, it is only a 45 minute train ride from Bristol, and there are trains every hour.
Bristol is a large prosperous city with a good choice of hotels and restaurants. It has an attractive harbourside and various attractions, but is not primarily a tourist destination in its own right in the way that Bath or York are, so you will not find yourself overwhelmed by other visitors. It has good public transport links to neighbouring Bath, Wells, Glastonbury, but travel to the Cotswolds and some out of city attractions would require a car.
In view of comments I saw recently, I think you need to be aware that in Bristol not everywhere is close to everywhere else. The city has a wide range of hotels and restaurants, but you may have to walk or travel by bus or taxi to get to them. There are lots of hotel choices near the city centre - 4 Premier Inns, for example, and everything from hostels to 5 star hotels. One thing Bristol lacks is quaint B & Bs, and you need to use a map before considering the cheaper accommodation a mile or more from the centre.

Thank you, chartley, for the response. Oh, please don't misunderstand--I am debating the one-night in Bridgwater, let alone 3! I'm considering skipping the stay entirely and moving straight to Bristol. I just have to make sure Bristol is the base I need.

Let me explain the Bridgwater thing:
Last year, my family research led us to Honiton, Devon (we used Exeter as our 3-day base). My ancestors left there and headed north to Bridgwater in 1840, probably around the same time as the rail line was built in Bridgwater. And there they stayed for several generations. I have mapped out their various housing locations, and I'd like to walk those. There are also two little museums there that are worth my while (luckily, I'm married to a guy who gets a kick out of little museums), but I'm thinking that I'd rather get straight to Bristol, even if it means a 4+-hour train journey from Falmouth and then backtrack on another day. It's only a 47-minute train ride, and I could also get a peek at Weston-Super-Mare. Why? I look checking out filming locations

So you brought up a good point about the hotels. I have a reservation at the Bristol Hotel. I'm leery about the 15-minute walk to the station (am thinking that if it's pouring, we'll have to do taxi) but I keep reading the reviews of places closer to the station and I'm even more leery.

And you do understand why I'm looking at this as a base. With the frequent train connections to Bath, Wells, Glastonbury, etc, we certainly can keep ourselves busy. We can trek to Bath two days if needed and come back to peace and calm.

As to Bristol itself, I'm quite interested in its Brunel history (note our Teignmouth stay early on). I am thinking our stay at The Bristol would make sense for that type of thing. So I'm seeking out more input from people who actually have stayed in the area.

AZ

There's a Premier Inn (Finzels Reach) less than half a mile from Bristol Temple Meads. I stayed in three Premier Inns on my last trip and was happy with all of them, and the TA reviews on this one seem generally good. There's a Novotel even closer but have no experience with them. One of the TA reviewers didn't like the area but if you want to be close to the station you are stuck with it.

Thanks, Thursdaysd. I keep coming back to that hotel and a few others. The good thing about the Bristol Hotel is that it is in the thick of things. The bad thing about the Bristol Hotel is that it is in the thick of things.

Assuming that you mean the Bristol Hotel in Princes Street, and not one of the other hotels which have both the words Bristol and hotel as part of their name, your choice is a good one. It overlooks the harbourside on one side, and is close to restaurants of all styles and prices. The Arnolfini gallery (modern art with changing exhibitions) and "M" shed museum are very close, as is the Watershed arts centre. At Wapping Wharf there are various fashionable small restaurants in old shipping containers, while the Michelin starred Casa Mia is within walking distance, as are many other good places. It is many years since I ate in the hotel restaurant, but it is a destination in its own right, unlike that at many hotels.

Unless it is raining, or you have luggage, there is no need to be concerned about a 15 minute walk to Temple Meads, as it is the sort journey walked by thousands every day at all hours. There are also buses, although you may find the journey takes just as long by the time you have walked to the bus stop, etc.

Chartley--You touched upon the exact reason I booked it. My husband, who rarely cares about our travel plans other than not moving from hotel to hotel, really liked the location after I Google "walked" it with him. We "walked" the route to the station too--no hills and a lot of places to roll luggage if need be (we know a taxi is easy, too).

But darn, it's a lot of money for a really cramped room. Especially if we are more or less moving in for five days. But for right now, I've extended our stay there.

I live in a river city in the US, one that is very underrated, but it has amazing art, architecture and history that people are just now appreciating. I think that is why I'm intrigued by Bristol (there is like NADA on this forum about it) and have been enjoying some video blogs. If this works out, you better believe there SHALL be quite an entry on it.

Well I'm now looking at an apartment in Finzels Reach. I have brought my husband into the conversation again, much against his interest. He seems most intrigued by the local pubs.

I have never seen the bedrooms at the Bristol Hotel, but it was one of the earliest "modern" hotels built in Bristol, and can believe that the rooms might be smaller than you were expecting. The hotel has seen various changes of ownership and refurbishment, but there is a limit to what you can do to make rooms bigger. The cheaper, standard rooms are described as fine for one and cosy for two. Overseas visitors are often disappointed at the cost of hotel rooms inEngland, and surprised at their size and features.
Finzels Reach is a new development in old buildings. Conrad Finzel was a German who came to Bristol and became a sugar refiner. Sugar was a major Bristol industry because of the trade with sugar plantations in the West Indies, but they were prone to fires, and after the refinery eventually closed a brewery built on the site. The current development, which I believe is a mix of old and new, both commercial and residential, is named after Finzel.
It is convenient for the city centre and old city, further from the harbourside, but closer to Temple Meads. If the accommodation suits your needs, it should offer something better for a longer stay. There are well-stocked convenience stores all over the city, and the larger stores are not far away.
Hope that information helps. There are so many options that is difficult to make recommendations, especially as I never stay in Bristol hotels myself.
By coincidence, I have spent the day at a large family history event in Bristol, staffing a stall om behalf of two local history societies, and also helping with a few family history enquiries.

We went with the Finzel's Reach apartment. My husband, again usually not interested in the pre-planning, is now reading up on all the local pubs to see which one will be "his local", while I've spent my time looking at the area's . Pretty cool. We have a couple of similar historic re-developments in our city, and they truly energize an economy. We're interested in seeing what Bristol has done.

Back to The Bristol Hotel....It does look as though their most recent renovations have emphasized interior wall soundproofing and bathroom re-designs, but staff acknowledges that they are stuck with that 60s footprint. The staff there are top notch, and my dealings with them have been exemplery. The location is great, too. But the rooms are pretty small, even the King Deluxe, for what is now a five-day stay. And we're used to small hotel rooms--for the most part, we've spent more time in European hotels than in American hotels over the past three decades. Our room two years ago in London was a shoe box, but it was superbly designed, and it suited us beautifully for our last two nights. Looking at the Bristol's renovated rooms from management and traveller pictures, I'm not seeing the kind of organized space that could make us "operational" for all of our daytrips. Even if we were willing to pony up for a suite (we aren't and it's not available), the bathroom is confining. So our decision came about as a result of our length of stay. If we were staying just one or two nights, The Bristol Hotel would have been our choice for sure.

Chartley, how wonderful you are so involved in family history. It's been so much fun for me. As Thursdays knows, I was able to show my husband the Altarnun, Cornwall baptismal font of his great grandfather two years ago and last year we got to stand in front of the little Honiton church where my 3rd great grandparents were married before they moved north to Bridgwater. One of these days I'll have to take my husband to Slovakia to show him where his maternal grandfather and grandmother were born, but I think I have to learn Slovakian before that can happen.

Thank you again for your input.

Well, I managed in Slovakia without Slovakian, but I was in somewhat touristed areas. (Stary Smokovec and Levoca.) Still, I would expect young people to be able to handle English. Loved the part I saw, not so keen on Bratislava but it was a while back and a bad hotel.

I do not have English language access to the Slovakian records, Thursdays. That's just one major hurdle. Another major problem is that area of the world changed a zillion times since they were born, immigrated and died. It's a been a nightmare to determine the country du jour of their origin at birth, let alone the town. I do know for sure that that my husband's grandparents spoke Slovak, not Czech, even though on some census records they are listed as Austrian or Czechoslovakian. I am aware that Slovak is similar to the literary Czech language, but differs greatly in colloquial form. I've even been able to determine the exact uncorrupted spelling of their last names, which differs in Polish, Czech, Slovak, etc. But that's about where this ends because none of the English records understood that spelling.

Ironically, I can trace my husband's and my German ancestors back to the 1600s with ease.

There was a huge pocket of Eastern Europeans in the small town next to my birth town. I took census in that town in in 1970. I sure knew even before that job that no matter what the country of birth was at the current hour, one was stupid to confuse Hungarians, Serbs, Croations, Slovaks, Slovenians, Czechs, Poles, etc. All had their own churches and men's clubs! Some of the old people were really sweet about country of birth when I asked and would ask me, "If I show you on a map, can you tell me what it is today?".

As a sidenote: My husband and I were entertained by the fact that our Slovenian guides in Slovenia assumed all immigrants had reported to Cleveland, OH. We told them that a lot of Slovenia clubs in every mill town we knew growing would be rather upset by that assumption.

Yes, that is a truly complicated area! Good luck! (Loved the Tatras, though.)