Top 10 Unusual Things To Do In Bristol [2026]
Quick summary
- For a proper night out: bowling, ice-free curling and tech darts at King Pins, or a six-course tasting menu at Six By Nico.
- For puzzle-solvers: Escape Hunt's themed rooms and its outdoor city hunt games.
- For big-screen film: IMAX and VIP beds at ODEON Luxe.
- For street art: the open-air murals of Quakers Art Lane.
- For history underground: torch-lit tours of Redcliffe Caves and the bronze Nails at the Corn Exchange.
- For green space and folklore: Royal Fort Gardens, the University Botanic Garden, and Goram's giant chair at Blaise Castle.
Bristol rewards anyone willing to look past the obvious.
Within a few miles, you can find underground caves, giant folklore, a dual-time clock and some of the best street art in the country.
This guide runs through ten unusual things to do in Bristol, written for locals after something different and visitors who want more than the standard sights.
Walk the open-air murals of Quakers Art Lane
Location: Quakers Lane, Cabot Circus, Bristol, BS1 3BX.
A walkway in the middle of Cabot Circus has been turned into a free open-air street art gallery, and you can walk it at any time when you pass by.
Five large-scale murals line the lane, painted over ten days in April 2026 by Inkie, Melo, Insane51, My Dog Sighs and HazardOne.
They pull the city's street art scene into the centre, next to the Aardman-inspired work already on the walls.
No two murals feel alike, which is part of the fun of walking the full run.
Between them, they nod to Bristol's music, creativity and character, making the lane a quick culture stop on a bigger day out (including with your children for them to see and enjoy).
It is free and out in the open.
➡️ Once you have seen it, you are already inside Cabot Circus, with the shops and leisure venues a few steps in either direction, including cafes, if you’re looking for a coffee or juice.
Race the clock at Escape Hunt
Location: Cabot Circus, Upper Ground, BS1 3BX (a 15-minute walk from Bristol Temple Meads).
You get a locked room, a story and 60 minutes to crack your way out, working the clues as a group against the clock.
Escape Hunt runs several themed adventures, from a sinking pirate ship to a wartime code room, each built like a film set with detailed props and a proper storyline.
The part that lifts it above the usual is the choice of outdoor city hunt games, which take the same puzzle-solving onto Bristol's streets.
Those come into their own in summer, when a walking mission around the city beats being cooped up inside.
Groups of two to six get the most out of it, and it can be the ideal place for hanging out with friends, families, work teams and birthdays.
We’d recommend you book ahead, because the popular rooms go quickly.
Try ice-free curling and tech darts at King Pins
Location: Cabot Circus, Upper Ground, BS1 3BX.
Bowling is only the start at King Pins, where you can also slide stones in ice-free curling, throw tech darts and take over a karaoke room without leaving the building.
The curling is the one most people have never done, sending stones down a slick synthetic sheet with no ice anywhere in sight.
Tech darts handles the scoring on big screens, no mental arithmetic required, and the karaoke rooms come out when the group wants to make some noise.
Add pool and a wall of arcade machines and an evening tends to wander from one game to the next.
There is food and a long drinks list running through it all, and walk-ins are fine if you have not booked.
Families are well covered too, with step-free access for children and prams, baby changing and highchairs on site.
Eat a menu that changes every six weeks at Six By Nico
Location: Cabot Circus, Bristol.
Dinner at Six by Nico is a six-course tasting menu that reinvents itself every six weeks, and regulars never quite know what they will be eating next.
Each unique dining experience takes a theme, a place, a memory or an idea, and the dishes tell that story as they arrive.
As the menu rotates so often, no two visits land the same, which is half the reason people keep coming back.
You can add matched wines or cocktails course by course, and the kitchen looks after meat-eaters, vegetarians and specific dietary needs without fuss.
Portions are tasting-menu sized, so the unusual activity is trying a lot of ideas in one evening.
Watch a film from a VIP bed at ODEON Luxe
Location: Cabot Circus, Glass House Lane, Broadmead, Bristol, BS1 3BX.
You can watch a film lying down here at ODEON Luxe, from a proper VIP bed, with a personal tray table and a seat that reclines the whole way back.
The beds are in a couple of the screens (4 and 7), and the Luxe Suite adds cosy two-seater pods if you want something more date-sized while also taking the children.
It also brought IMAX back to Bristol after years without one, alongside an immersive iSense screen for anything you want big and loud.
Eight screens fill the top floor of Cabot Circus, running everything from opening-weekend blockbusters to family films.
You can also order ahead on the ODEON app and pick up snacks, a Costa or a cocktail on the way in.
➡️ King Pins and a row of restaurants are just downstairs, ready to turn a screening into a full evening out.
Go underground at Redcliffe Caves
Location: Phoenix Wharf, Redcliffe, Bristol, BS1 6SR.
If you book a torch-lit tour of Redcliffe Caves, you’ll drop into a network of hand-dug tunnels that most people walk over every day without knowing.
They were cut into the soft red sandstone from the Middle Ages onwards to supply sand for Bristol's glassmaking trade, then used for storage long after.
The history is an odd one, taking in resident hermits and a wartime survey for use as an air-raid shelter.
Only about an acre has been mapped, and parts are sealed off, so even the guides cannot tell you the full extent.
As the caves are normally locked, you get in through guided history tours, the Bristol Open Doors weekend, or the underground film screenings held inside them.
Find the mirror maze at Royal Fort Gardens
Location: Tyndall Avenue, Bristol, BS8 1UH.
Tucked into a calm university garden just off the top of Park Street is a mirror maze you can walk straight into, free of charge.
Called Follow Me, it is 76 polished steel plates set out as a six-metre square labyrinth, made by Danish artist Jeppe Hein in 2009 for the university's centenary.
The rest of the garden is sloping grass and mature trees, laid out in the landscape style by Humphry Repton.
There is a pond with frogs and newts, bug hotels tucked into the borders, and benches for when you just want to stop and listen to the birds.
Track down a giant's chair at Blaise Castle Estate
Location: Kings Weston Road, Bristol, BS10 7QS.
The appeal of Blaise Castle Estate is hidden in its wooded Hazel Brook gorge: Goram's Chair, a limestone outcrop shaped like a giant's stone throne.
Two giants, Goram and Vincent, both wanted a woman named Avona. She said she would have whichever of them could drain the great lake that once filled the valley.
Vincent went at the Avon Gorge over at Clifton. Goram started this one. Then he sat down in his chair, drank a giant quantity of ale and fell asleep.
He lost. The gorge you are walking through is the one he never finished, which is why the Hazel Brook is a stream, and the Avon is a river.
Across the gorge on Castle Hill is the giant's footprint, a worn hollow in the rock that the story blames on Goram stamping his foot when he woke and realised.
Look out for the Giant's Soap-Dish too, the pool partway down the gorge now known as Tarn Lake.
Beyond the myth, the estate packs a mock castle folly, a small museum, woodland trails and a big play area into its 650 acres.
➡️ Getting into the estate is free, but the main car park charges by the hour, and it is worth checking current rates and closing times before you set off.
Touch the Nails at the Corn Exchange
Location: Corn Street, Bristol, BS1 1JQ.
Four bronze tables called the Nails stand on the pavement outside the old Corn Exchange, and you are free to walk up and put your hand on four centuries of Bristol trade.
Merchants used to settle deals by handing money across these flat-topped pillars, a habit often credited as the root of the phrase 'pay on the nail'.
Each of the four was made in a different era across the 1500s and 1600s, so no two are quite the same shape or finish.
Look up at the building's clockface, and you will spot a second minute hand most people miss.
One hand keeps Bristol's old local time, the other keeps Greenwich Mean Time, and the two run about ten minutes apart.
The extra hand was added once the railways forced a single national time in the 1850s, and the clock has shown both ever since.
Walk from rainforest to desert at the University of Bristol Botanic Garden
Location: Stoke Park Road, Stoke Bishop, Bristol, BS9 1JG.
A run of glasshouses at the University of Bristol Botanic Garden takes you from rainforest humidity through to dry desert air in the space of a few steps.
The wider garden is arranged to tell the story of plants, and a wander round follows evolution and use as much as colour.
The collections are grouped by theme, from the earliest plant life and rare local species to Mediterranean and useful plants grown for food and medicine.
It is smaller and quieter than most people expect, which is part of the appeal on a busy afternoon.
Even though it is a little way from the centre, it makes a good trip for anyone who wants to see plants with a bit of story attached.
⚠️ Dogs are not allowed apart from assistance dogs, and the garden can close at short notice in strong winds, so check ahead on a rough day.
Spend an unusual day at Cabot Circus
Cabot Circus is more than a shopping destination, and the unusual side of Bristol runs right through it.
From cracking codes in an escape room to sliding a curling stone, catching an IMAX film or eating your way through a six-course menu, there is plenty here to fill a day that is anything but ordinary.
You can plan your visit to Cabot Circus here to see how to reach us by car, taxi, train, bus or bike.
If you are driving in, our smart parking solution lets you skip the ticket machine and cuts the queues on your way out.
