None other than an 18th Century mansion house set in acres and acres of wooded landscape, as…read moredescribed by Ms. Jane Austen herself. The 'Castle' part is actually a grassy hillfort upon which you can gallop to your heart's content. But there is a small Gothic Folly to explore, at the top of a steep hill or course. The mansion house has been lovingly converted into a museum of childhood (sounds a bit creepy - full of china dolls etc - but actually a great deal of fun, with costumes, old games and toys - will get your grandparents reminiscing and your kids learning - gotta be a good thing!) The adventure play parks also prove screamingly popular with little 'uns of all ages. With a regular ice-cream van, a coffee shop and a generous car park - for me Blaise is a proper 'day-out', without being miles and miles from the city.

I've been coming to Blaise since i was a child and my love is still strong for it!…read more There's free parking and lots of it, a great little cafe serving ice creams and such, a large kids playground, old house and museum And the most BEAUTIFUL scenery in Bristol. Acres of rolling hills and trees you forget your in a city after being there for a while. The land goes up hill and over some rocky path's to the top overlooking the Bristol valley, walking down past the house and further into the woods you find a lovely stream with stone bridge. It's a great spot for taking photos or having a romantic stroll. Great to be with Nature and there are no restraints to where you can walk, depending on how brave you are. There are walk ways and proper pathways or you can go into the woods themselves. It feels like a little magical place away from everything. Easily the best place next to the downs for a picnic and dogs are welcome to/ if you don't mind a little walk buses 76 goes there or driving can easily be 20 minutes or less from the centre. You can visit in the summer or even when it's snowing- it looks beautiful either way

Free museum (donations welcome), very nice collection. In particular, I enjoyed the animal display…read moreof those found in and around the Bristol area and my spouse was excited to see the Banksy. We loved seeing the anti-racism display as well. There were several good options for children as well and we saw a school class enjoying the exhibits. We hadn't planned on this stop but popped in when we happened across it. The building is also beautiful! Worth stopping in!

For a smaller museum, this one is of the must stop learning experiences anywhere. It has an real…read morediversity of art, science, and history that works for any family or lifelong student. It is free of charge but they do ask for 5 pound donations (optional).

This is a neat little museum that gives a high level overview on the history of Bristol. We stopped…read morein to pass time before we had to catch our flight. Took about 30-40 mins of exploring. There were a lot of kids in the place but the exhibits are geared for all ages.

Great museum this- on the harbourside, which is always fun to wander around, it contains a lovely…read more(and free) insight into Bristol and its history. I loved the double decker bus you can go onto, and the bomb shelters, complete with commentary from locals who'd had to use them. There are some good exhibitions here about local neighbourhoods, which might be slightly less interesting if you don't know them. Mshed is a good size to have a quick peek around, or to spend a bit more time with the exhibitions. There's a nice harbour view from upstairs, too. And you can buy Bristol things from the shop.

So Caveat for this review-it's only for the free area around the entrance of this museum & the Gift…read moreShop. I didn't actually pay the £10 to go and check inside the ship. However there are some really neat things to do, so wanted to write a quick review to mention those: 1) look for the post office box near the back of the gift shop - any letter posted there is franked "sent aboard the SS Great Britain" which I thought was a super neat idea 2) you can climb the rigging on the ship! 3) there are guided tours and a behind the scenes tour at specific times during the day 4) the gift shop has cool, fun, quirky items - it was honestly hard for me to walk out without purchasing anything. But I did it and if you visit, you've been warned! 5) just around the corner, a 5 min walk takes you to another Banksy - Girl with pierced ear-drum, so might as well take advantage of the locations! Yelp 164/ 2019

Is this worth the 14 pounds entry fee? Most definitely! Not just a ship, there's a whole museum…read morething going on too, and they are currently expanding with the renovation of another building on the other side of the ship, which is going to be recreating Brunel's actual drawing office. The ship is hermetically sealed in its dry dock, with a humidity-controlled environment keeping the remaining hull from rusting. This is where you start your tour, and it's nice and toasty down there on a chilly day. You can wander right around the hull down there, seeing the construction of the metal plates and wondering about the huge rip in the side and the crude patch they applied when the ship was brought back from the Falklands. Next, there's the museum part, where the story of the ship is told by various exhibits. Several items of ship furnishings are there, including the main mast boom; and there are several interactive displays to keep the kids amused. It's also fascinating to peruse actual letters from passengers on the ship, which really give you an idea of what life was like on board. Just through the room where you can dress up in Victorian fashion for a photo, there is an animated film that tells the story of how the ship was salvaged and brought back to Bristol. I found this very interesting, although it could have used a few inserts of documentary footage to liven up the animation sequences. Then on to the actual ship itself, where eschewing the offer to climb the rigging, which costs a extra tenner and is done under supervision with a harness and hard hat of course - I was momentarily tempted I confess; we took our audio tour widget and descended into the interior. You get a choice of 4 audio guides, and with each one there are numbers throughout the ship that you dial into the handset to get the appropriate blurb, which was very cool as you can wander where you will and not have to do it in any particular sequence. The interior is fitted out as it was when she was carrying passengers, so you can really get a feel of what it was like, from the 'steerage' areas with stacked bunks right through to the promenade lounge with its faux-marble columns. Definitely a must-see tour item in Bristol. A fascinating bit of history, and I like the way that you can wander around at your own pace and not feel that you are being harried in any way. Full marks.

Bristol Mueseum welcomes you with a biplane hanging from the ceiling of a large foyer area. From…read morehere you can go off to various exhibitions, including a natural history section, a well stocked Egyptian section, and corridors of stuffed animals and works of fine art. Everything you would imagine a muesuem and art gallery to have, then. They did have the Banksy (famous Bristolian graffitti artist) exhibition recently, drawing massive crowds. That was a one-off, unfortunately. It's free, and I think the best way to do the mueseum is in bits and pieces. Come for less than an hour, have a wonder round a couple of the exhibitions and then go and do something a bit less cultured. I might just like doing it this way because I lack attention span, but this way you can escape from the city for a little while and don't start feeling like your forcing yourself to appreciate culture.

Towering at the top of Park Street, next to the Wills Memorial Building, the city's museum is a…read moregreat treasure to the people of Bristol. It's a fantastic tourist attraction, which was recently in the papers for it's extremely entertaining (despite the four hour wait in the queue) Banksy takeover exhibition. The central location (I walk past it at least 3 times a week) and the absence of entry fee means that you can pop in any time to enjoy the delights of the Museum.

If you are into art, then you know that the city of Bristol has really become synonymous with…read moreBanksy, an a funny, witty, political satirist who uses graffiti art as his medium. Full confession: actually my brother is a massive fan of Banksy and it he who introduced me to his art, and our whole reason to actually come to Bristol on a weekend getaway, was to check out the various bits of Banksy's artwork scattered around the city (the fact that we both just fell in love with the vibrancy and charm of the city of Bristol is a whole another story!) Banksy 'Love Cheat' Mural was the first Banksy we saw, and one of the tour stops during the Blackbeard To Banksy - Ultimate Bristol Walking Tour. The name of this artwork is "Love Cheat" and is a perfect example of Banksy's ironic sense of humor as the work is scintillated on the side-wall of a sexual health clinic. Our guide told us that Banksy apparently created a full scaffolding, pretending to be a construction worker and when the council wanted to paint over it, local Bristolians set up a petition that prevented the artwork from being painted over. The a few years back, the council decided to sell the building and what they did was genius - they listed it as an artwork with a building attached! The new owners have offices on the main floor, but the basement is a swanky cocktail club with a secret entrance. One things that took me aback was the size of the stencil - it's absolutely the size of a window in someone's room! Also, when I came in April 2019, it had been vandalized with blue paintball pellets - our tour guide told us those apparently appeared after a local radio interview in which Banksy admitted to a being a fan of Bristol football club with red colours (their rivals wear blue, hence the blue paintball pellets!). The second bit of vandalism is because apparently there is the local graffiti ''artist" called ''KAPE'' and he thinks its funny (ha-ha not!) to go around and signing his name over all the local area famous graffiti artworks! So when you see my photos, you can see both these vandalized bits of work too. Anyway, seeing this was just so amazing and super chuffed I got to see a Banksy artwork up close and personal. Yelp 158/ 2019

Five stars despite never having seen it in person…read more Many thanks to Qype for making this available.

This is a museum in South Wales which tells all about the colliery history in the area. In the same…read moremanner as The Big Pit, Rhondda Heritage Park strives to tell the story of local toil, plight and humanity through a delightful series of galleries and interactive exhibitions. Unlike The Big Pit, however, you cannot go down into the mines here, as they have long since been closed off. They do have a very convincing reenactment space though, and for those easily beguiled or young at heart, you might just believe you really are far underground. At the end of the tour there is a Simulation ride, where you are flung along cave tunnels in the back of a coal cart. This is, from what I remember of childhood visits, probably the highlight. The guide many years ago said that everyone begged to run the ride again, but they would never do it. Not even for the Queen, he said. (At 9, this shocked me.) Rhondda Heritage Park is a good place for a family afternoon out; particularly amusing if you're visiting with someone afraid of the dark.

This is a wonderful park to have a day out in with children! There is just so much to see and do…read morehere, I have fond memories of when I was a child, going here to this park. I even have some dreams about the place as walk back along the small, grey rocks that lay on the flat and hard ground that seems to be near something like a train station or something. Then I just fade out of it, quickly... I remember feeling terrified at the thought of going underground and following the footsteps of what a minor would have used to have taken. We had a story and health instructions given to us before we entered the mine and the dark, cold and a narrow lift with one small light bulb lighting it up. We had to wear hard helmets with small, light bulbs blaring out from the top of you helmets. You can at first go and see The Visitor Centre, which has; an Art Gallery, a café on level one, a gift shop and a period village that has been re-constructed called Village Street. Entry to this heritage park is mostly free; if it is a special event day there then you have to pay to enter the place. I recommend this place to all, especially to children and their parents.

I recently visited the 360 coffee shop Café at Clifton Observatory. Overall, my experience was…read moredecent. The café itself is very small, which makes it tricky to move around when it's busy. I ordered an iced caramel latte, portion size was generous and the drink tasted decent. The real highlight was the rooftop seating area, from where you get a stunning view of the Clifton Suspension Bridge, which looked absolutely breathtaking in the light drizzle on the day I visited. That view alone made the trip worthwhile.

This was a pleasant surprise. We purchased the combined ticket and were impressed by both…read moreexperiences. There's great views of the bridge at the top of the observatory, and the camera obscura was a neat form of innovation to see. The climb down to the Giants cave gave another great view of the bridge from a different angle and the climb back up wasn't too difficult for us.

A wonderful step back in time to the rich, snobby, yuppy, elitist, wealthy lifestyle of the English…read moreElites during the Victoria Era. The Georgia architecture is gorgeous and imposing. The interior rooms are recreated in the 19th century Victorian styles with the art, furniture, and decor. The voice actors breath new life and add an amusing storyline that continues in each room you visit...fascinating! Friendly staff all around, whom all seemed very happy at their jobs and supporting this historical site. £16/$22 for entry, and worth it!

This is a walk-on tour of a museum home to give you a idea of a day in the life of a guest family…read more You follow the numbered footprints, room to room and see tables , chairs , beds , clothing , dishes as they would have been on a given day. There is a audio description of family engagement that comes on by cue. You are kind of alone in each room as the entrance person sends guests thru on a timing schedule. But some people are in a rush and catch up. A very eye opening look at dishware and items from 300 years ago. The ticket was a bit expensive for two, but the crown does not support this museum and your entrance is Valid for one year, should you return. They offer a senior rate. We did enjoy it, it's really not for kids. A LOT of things not to be touched or moved. All within reach. It's a real home from the 1700's.

Along Bristol's harbourside you shall find this link to Bristol's past. Trundling up and down the…read morerailway lines ingrained into the ground a steam train runs, pulling along cart loads of tourists. It's quite an evocative experience - I can remember well the smell of the fire burning and the piercing whistle just before the train juddered into life. Something I did whenever the sun came out when I was young, this is a wonderful family day out. Get a kid to buy themselves a ticket, help them up into the carriage (things have been kept pretty authentic here, so you might have to clamber around a bit, and they should have a whale of a time. The train billows huge amounts of steam,which means you can see from all over the city when it's running. More often in the summer months, make sure you take the opportunity to go for a ride when you can.

Okay so having been in Bristol for a good few years, I had never thought to check out these train…read morerides until a couple of family members came up and wanted something touristy and different to do - and it was actually pretty good fun! We wanted to check out the SS Great Britain and took an old fashioned steam train along to it, at just around £2 each. This is the kind of thing worth doing once in terms of exploring Bristol, but probably not something you'd do again - purely because once you've done it you've done it, and there's not a whole lot more you can get from the experience! It's very touristy but if you're a resident and have never done it then it could also be a bit of fun. One thing i would add is to make sure you check out when the trains are running - they tend to be every other weekend, and occassionaly run on Mondays too!