versione italiana
Dec 2005 - March 2006 - Bristol,
England
This latest newsletter is dedicated to Bristol,
the city where we have been living for 6 months
now. We kick-off above with a picture we took
a few Sunday's ago when we walked about 20 minutes
from where we are staying to 'Clifton
Suspension Bridge' - a bridge built
by the famous engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
(He also built many things including the Tamar
bridge in Plymouth, Cardiff and Plymouth docks,
and the Great Western Railway).
Many of these pictures were taken by Valeria
on her way to or from work. Don’t be deceived
though by the fact that the weather looks nice
and sunny in all of the pictures. This is not
what the English weather is usually like. It
was more a case of Valeria happening to take
the pictures on the one nice day of the week!
(Whenever I see travel programmes on TV about
England, it is always sunny for some reason).
Clifton Suspension Bridge by the way, connects
two different counties: Avon and Somerset. One
minute you are in Avon and, as soon as you cross
the bridge, you are in Somerset.
Clifton Village is shown below. The shops and
restaurants make you feel as though you are
almost in a Mediterranean country and on nice
warm, sunny days (which do sometimes occur)
there are lots of people hanging around.
Below left, as we walked to the bridge, we
saw an interesting sculpture in the front window
of somebody’s house. Below right, a pub
in Park Street, Clifton, on the way home from
work. The building could easily look right in
Venice.
Queen’s Square is shown
below left, and this is within 5 minutes walk
from were we both work. Below right, a view from
the bridge between Queen’s Square and Redcliffe
Way, where Valeria works (she works for Ofsted,
in a building called Freshford House).
Below left, still on the way to work, College
Green, with a view of the Bristol
cathedral and busy people passing by. On
the right, a view of Park Street, from the top.
Every day Valeria and I walk uphill along this
street to get home. A good way to keep fit.
All
photos by Valeria Lo Iacono & Paul Symonds
- 2006
We took the following two pictures during
our trip to Cardiff, Wales. In Cardiff Valeria
and I met two of our very good friends from
university. The guy in the picture sat with
Valeria is one of my (Paul's) best friends
from university, Michael Hall.
Below left Claudia, a friend of Valeria’s
from university with her boyfriend Anthony.
Claudia attended university in Italy for
one year, before having the good idea of
changing to a university in the UK. In Italy
it can take even 8 years or more to finish
university, so, as Valeria always says,
Claudia’s decision to get a degree,
masters and Phd in the Uk, in the same amount
of time, was very wise. Below right a picture
taken by Valeria in a pub in Bristol. It
shows Chris, a friend from work.
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The last two pictures show another side
to Bristol life. The dreaded council tax
is a tax most people hate paying in the
UK and you can even find signs around the
city, like the one shown below.. “There’s
nowhere to hide!” like Bristol City
Council reminds us, poor defenceless citizens.
Finally, on the right, you can see Valeria
with her new friend, the giant cockroach
outside @Bristol (a scientific centre for
children, with an IMAX cinema and a greenhouse
with a miniature rainforest). She has left
me for a cockroach. I don't know why :)
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