Another day at the museum

The fact that I like of Bristol the most is that most museum are free. Every time I don't have special plans for the day I visit one museum. Today, it was the turn of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery at the top of Park Street.

Situated in Clifton next door to the impressive Wills Memorial Building, Bristol Museum and Art Gallery holds sections on natural history, national and international archaeology, french and eastern art, pottery and wildlife, among others.

In summer 2009, the museum hosted the largest exhibition about Banksy, the world wide famous graffiti artist. The exhibition was developed in secrecy and with no advance publicity and still, some people faced six-hour queue to see the exhibition on the last day.

Admission to the museum is free (3 pound donation is suggested at the exit) and the opening hours are Mon-Fri 10am to 5pm and 10am to 6pm during the weekends. This post will just focus on the permanent exhibition of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery. I hope you find it helpful!

Ground Floor

As you enter, the gallery on the left, South West Wildlife, gathers natural history of Bristol region. A fantastic way to learn more about animals and nature of the region.


The topic of the gallery on the right, on the other hand, is Egypt. Belief, Life, Death and After death of ancient Egypt are captured through over 600 objects, most never displayed before. You will find painted coffins, human mummies, animal mummies, figurines, offerings, amulets and many more.

First Floor

Geology exhibition will take you back in time through the last billions of years of the history of the planet. Dinosaurs and fossils are the main focus. 
The exhibition about minerals will allow you to discover curious characteristics about minerals and you will learn what Bristol Diamond is.
Wildlife is the exhibition about the animal kingdom, to see common but also rare (and in many cases extinct) animals from the UK.

In the middle of the balcony, there is a great view of the Bristol Boxkite, which was the first aircraft produced by the British Aeroplane Company. 

The founder and chairman of Bristol Aircraft, Sir George White, wanted to build licensed copies of the Zodiac biplane. Initial attempts to get the first design fly were unsuccessful, they built a total of 78 Bristol Boxkites until 1914, when the production stopped. Read more

Second Floor

French Art gallery features paintings from famous french painters such as Renoir and Pissarro. There is another gallery with Eastern Art, which I found it small and dark. Pottery, Ceramics and Silver collection are at the upper level, and the collection includes British and European pieces.




In general, I found the museum very interesting. Galleries have very interesting and varied topics, and if you don't like one, you can easily jump and go to the next gallery. It is a good plan for a rainy day, for example, and it is free. However, there were several things that I didn't like.

On the one hand, I found it confusing how authentic pieces are mixed with fake pieces. Let me explain: in the geology gallery, there were real fossils next to plastic dinosaur miniatures or plastic skeletons. I guess it is because it is very children-focused and they want the exhibition to be attractive to them too. 

On the other hand, you should bear in mind that Bristol Museum and Art Gallery is very kid-friendly museum, they have interactive games and exploration area as well. The museum can get quite busy and noisy if you go during "family time". Avoid weekends if you want to get a more silent visit to the museum.

To finish with, I would like to add that the second floor was the least crowded of all. I have to admit that it is probably because the galleries are more boring and less interactive than others. In my opinion, they should try to improve then and promote them more.

LINKS

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Website: http://www.bristol.gov.uk/page/leisure-and-culture/bristol-museum-and-art-gallery
Banksy in Bristol Museum: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2009/jun/12/banksy-bristol-art-exhibition

Oink oink! Moo moo! Baa baa!

A green oasis in the heart of the city of Bristol. That's what St. Werburghs City Farm is. Located in the neighbourhood of St. Werburgh (BS2 9YJ), the farm offers a bunch of activities for kids and adults starting from training and educational activities for individuals and schools to a very nice cafeteria with a very unique playground.

The vision of the city farm is "to be truly inspirational city-centre farm that supports an informed, healthy and cohesive community to live, learn and play sustainably, in harmony with the environment". They wish to create a future where people are better connected to the story of their food from farm to plate, better connected to nature. 

According to survey conducted by The Telegraph, just half of the young UK adults know butter comes from a dairy cow and a third do not know eggs come from hens. That's why project like this this city farm are so important for future generations. Read the article here and judge for yourself. 

The farm is very neat and tidy area. They have some sheds for animals such as pigs and cows, a pool for ducks and a couple of very well-preserved areas for chickens. However, I reckon sheds and fenced areas should be slightly bigger for the animals to move freely. I guess they are limited by the amount of land available in the area.

The farm is opened 360 days a year with opening times from 9am-5pm in summer and 9am-4pm in winter. There is a café opened everyday except Tuesdays, and a shop where you can buy eggs, plants and nice handmade gifts. 

Although the entrance is free, small charity donations are  very welcome in the Donation Bin.

You can help the city farm bloom by joining the membership scheme. There are 4 types of membership: Gold (£5/month), Silver (£2/month), Standard (£1/month) and Concessionary (£10/year). There is an information office in the green building next to the coffee shop where you can ask for information of any kind. Just knock the door and come in. The staff are very kind and helpful.

If you ever go there, I would recommend you to focus extra attention on the scarecrows around the area. They are very nicely decorated, with extremely colorful clothes, the bests I have ever seen so far in the UK. I post a little example in here.

More information: St. Werburghs City Farm Website

Beneath the sea

Recently, I have been in Blue Reef Aquarium. The weather was rainy, so we planned to go "under the sea" on a Saturday afternoon. I found a 20% discount voucher online which you can save £2 pounds with. However, there is a £1.5 booking fee for the online booking! So we obviously didn't use the voucher and paid £12 each for the ticket, with the student discount.

The aquarium is located very centric, right in the Harbourside, and it is opened daily from 10am to 5pm. We arrived there at 3pm and as it was not crowded, we had more than enough time to see all the fish there. 

In the aquarium you can find the Native Display, from the jellyfish display to giant North Sea Fish, the Bay of Rays, the Coral Display with loads of colorful fish, the Amazon Tank...

In the native display, species swim around sunken ships hull and you are able to observe them through a giant reinforced tunnel display window.

The Giant Pacific Octopus deserves a special mention. Its majestuous size left most of the visitors open-mouthed. The Enteroctopus Dofleini is a large cephalopod which can be found in the coastal North Pacific, usually at the depth of around 65m. Adults usually weight around 15kg, with an arm span of up to 4.3 m!! It is very impressive!

As well as the octopus, the Green Moray must have a special space in here too. His almost threatening look and movements made me had goose bumps. Bites of this kind of morays can be particularly dangerous due to its large size! 

As an overal opinion, I have to admit that I really liked the decoration of the aquarium. Most of the animals are kept in very big displays where they can swim freely. However, me and my friends agreed that, for example, electric eel's and giant octopus' displays look too small for the size of the species.

Anecdote of the day: the unexpected photo shoot the photo-team made of us. More than 20 pictures, in more than 10 different possitions! They should know that we are not cute enough to pay £12 for just one picture of ourselves.

INTERESTING LINKS
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Blue Reef Aquarium: http://www.bristolaquarium.co.uk/displays/giant-pacific-octopus/
Discount: http://www.smartsave.com/uk/bristol-aquarium
Giant Pacific Octopus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enteroctopus_dofleini