Sunday Adventure: Bristol Balloon Fiesta

One of Bristol's most well known attractions is the annual international balloon fiesta. A free event (although if you want to park at the site, you pay for that) that attracts thousands of people from all over the world. And creates a dilemma for us - a must see and do for sure, but we really HATE crowds and heavy traffic - both of which the fiesta is very well known for. A lucky compromise for us is the morning mass ascent, which is scheduled to start each morning at 6am. An early morning yes, but so worth it to still see the balloons but avoid the traffic and chaos. And Sunday this year was a picture perfect morning for it as you'll see below.

 One of the first up and away was this special shapes balloon. And I love that the moon is captured in the photo as well. It was probably about 6:30am at this point and this was the second balloon to launch.

Around 104 balloons launched over a 75 minute or so period that morning and all from a relatively small field. They would lift in batches so you saw continuous launches for more than an hour - just incredible.

 If we get a chance to go up in one, we figure this would be the best choice!

Another special shapes balloon from Longleat Animal Safari Park (on our list for Sunday road trip adventures).

 Yep, there's even a minion balloon. The thing was HUGE and took forever to inflate.

 

 All shapes and sizes, this was one of three that we saw that were piloted by a single person sitting in what looks like a harness chair of some kind. These are a little smaller and didn't rise as high or go as far, but still pretty impressive.

 Even a square!

 And a round one.

The Royal Navy showed off their skills by having a hang glider and a sky diver take off from their launched balloon. Unfortunately, my photos didn't turn out of the jump or the hang glider, but here's their balloon taking off.

An amazing morning and worth getting up so early on a Sunday! And there was very little traffic to contend with. Yes, there was a crowd but not really bad at all and plenty of room for everyone there. So glad we decided to go and I expect we'll make this a yearly tradition.