Hot Air Balloning is always on the look out for the latest and greatest places to go Ballooning. Ballooning News has found a fantastic article in The Times about the best places to enjoy the art and grace of Ballooning locally.
WHERE TO GO
Bristol
Ballooning has had several heydays beginning with a near craze in France near its debut (the public immolation of its earliest practitioners during an ill-advised demonstration of a hydrogen and flame-heat combo dampened it slightly). A later fixation with the sport cropped up in the ‘70s and where better to start ballooning than the city that became the epicentre of that craze in 1978, Bristol.
The seaside city calls itself the “Ballooning capital of the world” and has hosted the Bristol Ballooning Fiesta for the last 30 years. This year it’s on August 9-12. It has in the past attracted 500,000 spectators who flock to see the novelty shaped balloons (last year saw a floating castle and a giant Tesco shopping trolley among others) and the hundreds of international exhibitors.
Bristol has several companies that provide rides including baileysballoons.co.uk and www.bristolballoons.co.uk. Aloft, you’ll catch a second-to-none aerial perspective of the gaping Avon Gorge and fly over the historic symbol of Bristol, the sweeping Clifton Suspension bridge. If the wind decides to blow you elsewhere, you might have a chance to stare down into the eyes of the lions in their enclosure in the Bristol city zoo.
Bath
City ballooning is far less common than rides that take you across the countryside for several obvious reasons. Air traffic from local airports combined with the aforementioned lack of steering capabilities means you’re liable to wander into a flight path, and built-up areas lack wide berths in which to make touchdown.
But Bath has no such limitations, and the fairly contained town is ensconced by the verdant West Country. Most spectacular are the flights on offer that launch from Royal Victoria Park in the heart of the city from www.balloonsoverbath.co.uk. The views here are stunning, and highly varied. You’ll be ferried over the ruins of the Ancient Roman Bath Spa or skim the spires of Bath Cathedral. Equally arresting are the honey-coloured arcs of the 18th century Bath Circus and 19th century Royal Crescent; Romanesque townhouses built by father and son architects. The ride ends in green pastures.
London
Urban hot air ballooning over the Big Smoke has no peer. In the wee hours of the morning on specific days of the week, there is a small window of opportunity when the traffic from local airports dies down enough to make a jaw-dropping ride over the city possible. Taking-off spots include Central London’s Hyde Park. As Westerly winds will take you into Heathrow Airspace, the flight’s operators say London excursions are prone to cancellation much more than the Home Counties flights. Be assured, however, they are worth waiting out the weather. Try www.adventureballoons.co.uk
Take off might see you rise above Tower Bridge, slip past the Millennium Dome or if the breeze is right, snake along the Thames itself or peer down at the tourists queuing for Buckingham Castle. London’s massive sprawling infrastructure takes on a mythic beauty from these heights; any squalor seems transformed into urban grandeur.
The Lake District
The environmentally friendly low-carbon emitting balloon lends itself to a pastoral setting. It’s almost soundless, so drifting among the clouds over lush green landscapes equally muted in the dawn or evening light can be rapturous.
The corrugated landscape of the Lake District www.high-adventure.co.uk takes on a whole new quality like the undulating back of St. George’s dragon. It’s sliced through with ribbons of rough-hewn stone walls that when viewed from above seem to snake through the countryside.
Most beautiful has to be the opportunity to see your conveyance, brightly coloured among the greys and greens of Cumbria, reflected back at you in the surfaces of the lakes you traverse, kaleidoscopic in the water’s eddies.
