You can go to their web page here -> Gromit Unleashed
The Gromit Trail is a collection of 80 statues scattered around Bristol and in September they will be taken down again and auctioned off for charity. We were told by someone we met along the way that they have done this kind of thing for the last two years in Bristol. Last time it was gorilla sculptures.
I think this was one of my favorite days of our vacation. London was fun but really crowded. In Bristol we knew exactly what we wanted to do and we weren't packed in a subway or crowded in the plazas. Coming to Bristol I wasn't sure about the scale of the trail and how much we would be able to see so we took a bus from London and decided to just stay the day then take the bus back to Manchester that night rather than staying the night. We were in Bristol from 11:00 AM, to 6 PM and we saw 42 out of 80 gromits in that time. We had a blast. I'm just going to share some of my favorites of the ones we saw, not all 42 that we got pictures of :)
"Bumble Boogie"
The first gromit we saw! Just across the street from where the bus dropped us off.
"A Close Shave"
We went to the tourist info center to get our passports and map. This one is a cute idea, and of course refers to the Wallace and Gromit movie which just makes it cooler :D
"Salty Sea Dog"
This one had a lot of cool details that made us smile, like the tattoos!
"Hero"
Super Gromit is fantastic! Plus the Wallace and Gromit mural behind him is very cool.
"Blazing Saddles"
Isn't he cute?
He's cute from behind too :P
"Watch Out Gromit"
Oh we were so upset. We walked to this one at the M Shed to get our passports stamped and they are closed on Mondays. We could see a guy sitting at a desk inside but he wouldn't let us in to stamp our passports, or see the other Gromit that is somewhere in the building. If they want to be closed, that's fine but then why not keep the Gromits outside so we can see them? :(
"Gromberry"
Another gromit with a cute booty O.o
"Patches"
Walking to this one nearly killed my sister. Since we didn't have a room for the night my sister was carrying our backpack of stuff which was pretty heavy. To see this one looked like a simple walk on the map, but actually there was a really steep road that we had to walk up. I was tired and all I was carrying was my purse. But we did it! We saw Patches!
We saw this gorilla and took a picture and it was only later that we met the person who told us that the gorillas had been part of last year's exhibit. I'm guessing this was one of them :)
We stopped at a Costa for smoothies. It was warm and we had been walking a lot. They were the best drinks I had ever had. My look says "Focus, sis. We have strategizing to do." We only had a limited amount of time and so many Gromits to see!
"Vincent Van Gromit"
I thought this one was really neat. The ear bandage is a great touch!
"TutanGromit"
We found out later this one was painted by a friend of a friend from church. Small world! This was one of the more creative ones in that the artist went beyond just painting and really changed up the sculpture which was cool.
"Newshound"
This one is neat because Wallace is there, but the Gromit is so cute by himself too!
All the paper "pasted" on him had cute little headlines on them. Very cleverly done.
"Gromit Lightyear"
We were so excited to see this one! His foot has John Lassiter's signature and everything. So cool.
"Doodles"
My sister wanted to be sure we got to see this one because she follows the comic - Simon's Cat. I chose a close-up picture of this one so you can see some the doodles ;)
"What a Wind Up!"
We only saw this one from across the river, but we are counting it anyways. We were running out of time at this point so we couldn't walk on the other side of river. There were more to see on our side.
"The King"
He was never in a building.
"Where's Wallace"
SO Adorable!
"Jack"
This one was on our list of Gromits we couldn't miss! You can order mini figurines of this one, A Close Shave, and more from the website. We were going to buy some while we were there but Jack was out of stock. We'll just have to pay for shipping, but they are worth it.
"Gromit-o-Matic"
Blueprint for your own Gromit. Lots of funny text on this one too. Did you know his ears are mufflers/nonsense filters?
As we walked around there were a few places that had passport stamp stations. We collected three of them. M Shed was closed and the mall was too far away to walk to :(
So these are some of my favorites from Bristol! After a day of walking we took a bus back to London to catch a bus to Manchester because it was cheaper to do that than if we took a bus straight back to Manchester. Go figure.
We had a bit of time to kill waiting for our connecting bus in London so we went to a bar to just hang out and chill. That was where we heard the news about the new royal baby. The people in our bar were calm but the interviews of the people standing in front of the palace and hospital were entertaining.
We were excited though :)
But it had been a long day. Excitement could only keep me awake for so long. I was a grumpy traveling companion on this bus ride. My sister let me sleep :P
That was our fun filled adventure to Bristol! One more blog post, a collection of pictures of what we saw in Manchester at the beginning, middle, and end.
No comments:
Post a Comment