Today me and Ben had a kid-free outing visiting Bristol for a day. We were only there for four hours in total, but it felt like a proper day out and mini-escape. If you’re wondering what you can do in a short trip to Bristol, my favourite U.K. city, then read on for how to spend half a day in Bristol.

free things to do in bristol - How do I spend a day in Bristol?

4 hours in Bristol kid-free

We managed to squeeze in Clifton Suspension Bridge, eating enough vegan junk food to last a week, a walk along the harbour and a quick coffee in Millennium Square.

Although we were kid-free, they actually would have loved everything we did today, aside from the 8km of walking up steep hills!

We absolutely love Bristol, or at least I do and I think Ben is coming around to loving it too!

I’ve been so many times in my early twenties before meeting Ben. I’ve had friends live in Bristol and also used to have nights out on Bristol in my partying years as they had so many great DJs performing compared to Cheltenham where I lived then.

I’d also regularly visit friends for lunch dates and enjoyed exploring the veggie and vegan food options in quirky independent cafes.

I’ve always felt Bristol is so friendly and there’s a certain buzz in the air whenever I visit.

It’s slightly alternative and being a vegan now, previously a vegetarian, Bristol city offered me so much variety and choice for years before anywhere else did. It’s all right up my street!

We live on the very edge of Gloucester now and Bristol is only around a 45 minute drive for us directly down the motorway. It’s nice and easy. We’ve been a few times with and without kids and we’re always happy to go back and explore more.

Free things to do in Bristol: Clifton Suspension Bridge

Even though I’ve been to Bristol numerous times, there was one thing I still hadn’t done: Clifton Suspension Bridge!

I’d driven under it, far below on the roads underneath, but I’d never been over the bridge or up to view it.

My mum had the kids for the day and Ben had a delivery to Bristol. He makes handmade rustic and retro furniture and had a custom order for a bedside table. It was the perfect excuse for a kid-free date day to Bristol!

Another place we haven’t visited is S.S. Great Britain, so that’s also on our list and we thought about going today, but we wanted to do something for free and save our spending money for some amazing vegan junk food! We’ll definitely have to add S.S. Great Britain to our 2020 bucket list.

Anyway. We decided to visit Clifton Suspension Bridge which is something free to see in Bristol and highly recommended!

It’s £1 if you want to drive over the bridge, but it’s best visited on foot so you can see the bridge in all its glory, walk over it at your own pace and take some fab photos.

We parked nearby on Victoria Square in Clifton which is free to park on a Sunday. We left the car here for the duration of our quick Bristol trip and explored on foot. I love all the quirky streets of Bristol and gazing up at the architecture. It was also my Sunday exercise for the day with all those steep hills!

We headed up to the bridge which was only a short walk. It looks so amazing up close! There’s lots of greenery around and a rugged steep rocky wall to the side of the gorge which makes the bridge look even more dramatic.

Across the bridge is a visitor centre which is also free to explore, but you can leave a donation. It explains the history of the bridge and is also a museum of some artefacts from the 1800s such as tickets for the grand opening of the bridge and original design drawings for the bridge.

There’s also an observatory atop the rugged rocky walls which has the best views of the bridge.

Amazing plant-based junk food in Bristol: Oowee Vegan

We knew we were going to have some sort of dirty vegan junk food in Bristol, but we didn’t know what.

We’ve been to Pepenero the last two times we went for amazing 20″ vegan pizzas (to share of course!) and although so tempting, we wanted to try somewhere different!

There are SO many vegan places to eat at in Bristol that we were simply going to Google best vegan food near me when hungry, but Ben’s customer actually recommended Oowee to us!

He asked what we had planned and we said about visiting the bridge then heading to Bristol city centre for vegan food and he said if we want American style burgers then we must check out Oowee – a totally vegan burger diner!

We used Google Maps to find it and walked a 45 minute walk from Clifton Suspension Bridge to Oowee through lots of Bristol’s amazing hilly cobbled streets, cool architecture and along the harbour.

We found Oowee and boy did it deliver!

I absolutely love seitan and they had loads of the stuff from burgers, to fried vegan chicken to loaded dirty fries! Yes please!

The choice was huge, but I decided on The Sneaky Clucker (a vegan chicken cheese burger with seitan), Ben picked The Big VG (a Beyond Meat burger) and we shared some Cluckin Fries (dirty fries loaded with vegan cheese, homemade gravy, deep fried vegan chicken and spring onions).

It was wayyyyyy too much food, but so good!!

Totally naughty, but when in ~~Rome~~ Bristol 🙂

I didn’t even eat dinner tonight as I was still so full from my Oowee lunch!

Millennium Square, Bristol harbour and the famous colourful houses

To finish off our short Bristol visit we popped for a coconut milk latte in the We The Curious cafe, mostly because we both really needed the toilet!

It’s somewhere we’ve been before and on my other blog is a We The Curious review. Bella also went last week for a school trip!

Finally we walked back to the car which was parked in Clifton. We walked along the harbourside looking at the boats and admiring the colourful Bristol houses, before venturing up the steep streets to Victoria Square to head home before the kids got back 🙂