An eccentric tour of Bristol's Harbour area

The long-awaited - by me, if by no-one else - post, covering that part of my weekend in Bristol spent wandering around looking at things (as opposed to sitting in a room talking about books). It strikes me as more than usually eccentric, in the mismatch between the things I most want to talk about and the pictures I most want to post: in an ideal world, pictures and text would illuminate each other, but there's nothing perfect about this world. A case in point: I want to start with a picture of my hotel, The Bristol, because it illustrates several things about it. It's just unfortunate that it's rather a dull picture. It does have the merit of being taken from the conference venue (the Watershed):

Hence the conversation (about other people's dinner plans):
E: "The Bristol? But there's a Hotel Bristol in every city in Europe!"
Me: "Yes, but only one of them is actually visible from here."

My room was on the first floor, overlooking the river - which means it was facing an area lively with night-time bars. It was heavily double-glazed, and it needed to be, but it was also screened by trees. I never closed my curtains, and I woke to dappled light, glinting off the water and patterned with leaves, which was a delight. Below the trees you can see the hotel restaurant, where I breakfasted and watched people walking along the harbourside under the trees.

( More under the cut. Also more, and with luck better, pictures... )

I could go on, but this is quite long enough. tl;dr version: I had a lovely time, and took lots of pictures.