Advantages: Beautiful, historic, welcoming, cosmopolitan
Disadvantages: Traffic and parking

...for dinner with friends in its beautiful restaurants when you really want to impress. Shopping *********  Broadmead Broadmead is Bristol’s main city centre shopping area, and boasting over 400 shops, pubs, restaurants and a cinema, it is the largest shopping centre in the West of England. Just five minutes or so on foot from Temple Meads Railway Station and the city centre, much of Broadmead is pedestrianised. It also contains The Galleries, a large covered mall on three floors, which is home to most of the usual chains (Boots, WH Smith, Waterstones, Woolworth, Argos, Virgin, TK-Maxx) plus a wide range of smaller stores including Lush, The Bear Factory, Clare’s Accessories and a variety of designer clothing stores. Make sure to wear comfortable walking shoes!  Corn Street In Corn Street you will find... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Good range of activities, very attractive areas, lots of fun to be had
Disadvantages: other areas are very dirty and run down

...Born and bred in Bristol, I have spent my whole life living here and so I think I now know the city pretty well! Here I am going to share this 19 years(!) of experience and give you my thorough review of the city and what it has to offer! A little Geography! Situated in the glorious south west of England, the city and county of Bristol is the largest city in this area with its population at about half a million. It sits on the River Avon, which winds its way through the city and out into the Severn Estuary. Getting to Bristol: Bristol is easily accessed by road either on the M4 or M5 which intersect just outside Bristol at Almondsbury. It is then a short trip up the M32 (avoiding rush hour if you want to get there the same day!) which takes you into the heart of Bristol. Bristol also has its own international airport a few... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: Big enough to be good
Disadvantages: Small enough to be friendly

...So people, this will be my last op for a couple of weeks after I move on Sunday and have to wait for a new phone line, etc, I've decided to write an op on my native city. This will be my 10th move and I wouldn't dream of living anywhere else, so heres the low-down on the South West's funkiest city. Bristol is the 7th biggest city in the UK and has around 400,000 people living in it. Due to the two universities in it, they being Bristol University and the University of the West of England (my own beloved uni!), the population can move around about, UWE has 24,000 students alone. That's not to say that Bristol is just a student city, there's definitely much more to it than that. I could concentrate on the bad things, like the rising crime rate, one of the highest council taxes in the country, highest homelessness population outside... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Convenient, good services, friendly
Disadvantages: Not all that close to Bristol, poor road infrastructure to get to airport.

...the airport was renamed Bristol International as part of a relaunch and rebranding exercise. In December 1997 the airport was partially sold by Bristol City Council to raise much needed finance for expansion. 51% is now owned by FirstGroup. In March 2000 the new terminal was opened by HRH Princess Royal. Passanger numbers now exceeded 2 million a year and expansion had meant changes to local roads and a new air traffic control building and infrastructure.In January 2001 the airport was purchased for £198 million by Macquarie & Cintra. In 2003 the airport saw 3.8 million passengers and services continued to expand. The airport has a secure future thanks to the government white paper which declared Bristol as the airport for the South West. Currently it is estimated that it will carry 30 million passengers by 2010. Having previously... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Can be efficient when wants to be!
Disadvantages: Could be busy/traffic at centre

...to travel on a First Bus in the Bristol Area(Zones 1 & 2) the FirstDay Ticket which can be used as many times on any First Bus in the area on the day registered. This ticket costs: £4.00 Adult (bought before 9.00am Mon-Fri) £3.70 Adult (any other times) £2.80 Child £2.20 Child (weekends) But if you are travelling into Bristol even from just outside the Zones you will need to purchase a FirstDay South West Ticket and used same way as above. This ticket costs: £7.00 Adult (bought before 9.00am Mon-Fri) £6.20 Adult (any other times) £5.20 Child £15.50 Family (up to 5 people - 2 adults max.)... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Well located and pretty cost effective
Disadvantages: Busy in the Summer

...has 1,708 hotels and 145,872 rooms. EXPRESS by HOLIDAY INN (commonly called Holiday Inn Express) at BRISTOL NORTH The full address is: Express By Holiday Inn BRISTOL-NORTH BRISTOL PARKWAY BUSINESS PARK BRISTOL, BS34 8SJ The Express by Holiday Inn at Bristol North is situated close to the M4, M5 & M32 motorways and it provides the ideal base to visit Bristol & the West Country. It’s location also makes it a good stopover point for those heading on holiday to destinations further afield. In addition to the good road connections, Bristol Parkway Railway station (with regular connections to London, the Midlands, South Wales and the South West) is only half a mile from the hotel. Bristol Airport is 18 miles away. The hotel has over 130 fully equipped en-suite rooms over four floors. Each room features an en... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Reasonable range of destinations, relatively convenient for me
Disadvantages: Expensive parking, not the easiest place to get to, Always Cold

...– not the easiest of treks (c.20 miles) and has been known to take me as long as getting from Swansea to the M49. Coming from the South West you would follow the M5, local route in, from the north, probably advisable to join the A4 from the M5 and use the abovementioned route. PARKING Did you know?................ This may not be strictly correct anymore with the recent growth spurts of small local airports such as Swansea that Bristol is the only airport car-park that you cannot pre-book parking – I wonder why? UPDATED: You can now apparently pre-book your parking at Bristol, and their prices have come down slightly, now charging customers at portions of £12 per day for staying less than the 24 hours, maybe they got some bad press. The car-park in Bristol is massive, the ground of extremely poor quality, the one-way systems... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: World-class collections; great displays for children; free of charge
Disadvantages: Needs easier access to upper floors

...Gallery Queen's Road Bristol BS8 1RL Tel. 0117 922 4749 www.bristol.gov.uk/museums Open Daily, 10am-5pm (hours may change in 2009) Lifts to some floors; space to leave buggies in front hall; baby-change; toilets' wheelchairs; highchairs available in cafe. Car parks are situated five minutes' walk from the museum in either West End or Trenchard Street. On foot, the museum is ten minutes from the city centre and twenty-five minutes from Bristol Temple Meads railway station. There are several bus services.... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: Good variety of events, many of which are free
Disadvantages: Hard to say

...My second visit to Bristol was on a decidedly damp Saturday afternoon, so we were looking for places to spend some time inside. Having walked down the steep slope of Park Street and not being in any hurry to go back up, I suggested that the Arnolfini arts centre might not be too much further to walk. Situated on Bristol's Harbourside, it is easily reached by walking along the quayside from The Centre. From the south you can get there by crossing the swing bridge on Prince Street. Admission is free, so it is definitely worth a visit if you are interested in the arts. The Arnolfini has no permanent collection of artworks, so exhibitions change from time to time. There is currently (August 2008) a display described as an 'interactive shopping experience' entitled 'Far West'. Although not exactly my cup of tea, there was a degree... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: inexpensive, easy to find, same standard everywhere, good standard of comfort
Disadvantages: no variety

.... Overall, a very good place to stay, either on your way down the M5 to the West country or on the way to Bristol. I would go again!... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful