Since mass ascensions to markets, attractions and live music do not miss the show that gives mid-August the International Balloon Fiesta this green county of England.
In September 1979 a small group of airmen were reunited with their balloons in Ashton Court, in southwest England green. It was the origin of the largest event of its kind in Europe, the International Balloon Fiesta Bristol. During that first weekend were a total of 117 flights and even a rise in all 27 balloons attending. But as impressive as it was, pales in comparison to the 150 balloons that come from around the globe to attend the 2010 event in mid August to attract over half a million spectators.
Sponsored by Astra, a satellite services provider, this year’s Balloon Fiesta will take place in Ashton Court, one of the parks most popular rural England, whose nearly 350 acres of woodland and meadows are located two kilometers from the center of the City of Bristol.
The party starts at noon on Thursday 12 August and continues until Sunday afternoon 15. There will be balloons and other traditional forms designed with special shapes. Besides seven mass ascensions, there will be a complete program of activities, flea market, craft tent, rides and live music. There will be two night glows, an incredibly beautiful show held in the evening when about thirty balloons illuminate like giant light bulbs in a carefully choreographed lights and music work.
The first festival was the brainchild of Don Cameron, founder of Cameron Balloons, the largest brand in the world of ballooning. Thousands of balloons creative traditional design and custom shapes and multicolored bubbles, many of which can be seen in the skies over Bristol in August, Cameron Balloons are also the architects of build castles in the air, making pigs fly and decorate the sky with flying monsters and fruits.
If you want to witness the best images you have to get up early or wait until later in the day, as the best flying conditions occur at dawn and dusk. The flight of the balloon follows after a ritual that begins when the soil is split into the huge bags of brightly colored balloons, of rip stop nylon, a tear-resistant lightweight fabric that holds temperatures up to 120 ยบ C. With gas cylinders heated air and the balloon is inflated. Once the balloon lifts off, the capacity is limited and the prevailing wind that usually takes the aerostatic leaving Bristol in the southwest, to the beautiful city of Bath, designated a World Heritage Site by Unesco.
The balloon festival is not the only idea ‘light’ that is associated with Bristol. Clifton Suspension Bridge, a gray metal filigree designed by Brunel through the Avon Gorge, the gorge of the River Avon, as a spider’s web. It seems to be collapsing under its own weight, however, there is almost 150 years, and while dates from that time that were used horse drawn carriages, now faces the traffic demands of the XXI century.
Each year in September, marks the International Kite Festival and thousands of people of all ages return to Ashton Court Estate to see large canvas and paper monsters to fight and hovering in the sky.
Now with his feet firmly on the ground, you have to walk the streets and cobbled streets of Old Bristol, a short walk from a very modern shopping center, but also close to the historic port of much interest in Bristol’s maritime past. A story about discovery, trade and even slavery and piracy.