Floating Harbor, Bristol

The old Watershed warehouses are alive with little restaurants, cafes and shops.

The Arnolfini Center, in a former tea trading house (1832) on the quayside opposite the Watershed, is a gallery of contemporary art.

Close to the swing bridge is the Lifeboat museum.

Close to the swing bridge is the Bristol Industrial Museum where exhibits include a collection of Rolls Royce airplane engines and a mockup of a cockpit from a Concorde.

A swing bridge near the Center provides access to Prince's Wharf on the south side of the harbor.

The most famous of Bristol harbor area's many bars and taverns is the triple gabled, half timbered Llandoger Trow in King Street, built in 1669. Here Alexander Selkirk is said to have told the story of his shipwreck to Daniel Defoe (1660-1731), who immortalized it in "Robinson Crusoe". The Llandoger Trow was also the model for the "Admirable Benbow", the inn frequented by Long John Silver in "Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94). Carefully restored in 1991 the tavern is linked by an underpass to the Theatre Royal on the opposite side of the street.

Opened in 1764 the theater, now the home of the Bristol Old Vic, is the oldest playhouse in England to have had its stage in continuous use.

The Merchants' House (1696), a short distance west of the theater, is the headquarters of the Society of Merchant Venturers of Bristol, founded in 1532.