Bristol Renaissance Faire 2024
This is going to be a short blog with only one day to discuss but it was so fun and something I feel was worthy of sharing.
Normally things are done just Jerry and I when we are in our home state, but I have a couple of friends who are big renaissance faire nerds who invited us to join them.
On a hot Saturday morning we all met up and got into costume (yes, we wore costumes) and made our way to the entrance of the faire.
Personally, I have never had interest in going to the renaissance faire but everyone in our group, including Jerry, had been at least once in the past and hyped up the experience for me. I had expectations set high when we arrived and still, they were blown out the water. The atmosphere of the fair was amazing. Especially the amount of people who dress up. It seemed like if you didn’t than you were the odd one out.
For a while we didn’t do much besides walk around. My friend did need her hat fixed so we parted ways for a little bit and during that time Jerry and I browsed some bows and watched the mud show. I was expecting the mud show to, I don’t know, involve mud? Instead, it was just two men verbally assaulting each other and pinning their side of the audience against the others. It was a lot of fun and truly amazing to see how involved the audience became in the skit. It isn’t common to see that much crowd involvement at normal events, but the renaissance faire had somehow figured out the system for that.
After joining up with our friends again we walked deeper into the faire grounds. The deeper you went it seemed the more spirited the people and event staff became. Ladies were dancing in the street, dressed up in heavy but beautiful dresses. Sketchy rides and faire games were looking to draw people in for things like, axe throwing, star throwing, and archery. And Jerry and mines personal favorite was catching sight of the Garlic Mushrooms.
We split from our friends again and after collecting a bowl of the mushroom goodness we devoured it within a couple minutes and sipped on sassafras (more traditionally tasting root beer). This really helped us cool down.
Jerry and I decided to hit up an Archery game and give it a try. For some reason when I was in High School a single class day of gym was about teaching us archery which was awesome and helpful for kicking Jerry’s butt at the Archery game during the faire. It wasn’t a competition but if I can gloat about beating Jerry at anything I will. He does the same to me I’m not the bad guy here.
We joined up with our friends again and walked around until about 2:30pm. At this point we had been at the fair for four and a half hours. The sun only became stronger, and the sweat poured more. The temperature was 84 but humidity and little wind made it feel more intense and Jerry was struggling in the heat. We stopped again and got some more of the Garlic Mushroom stew and sat beneath the shade talking until 3 when Jerry and I decided to call it quits and head home.
We wanted to watch some of the Jousting event that was happening before we left but Jerry wasn’t looking too good, and we made the executive decision to skip it.
Overall, the day was hot and strenuous but eventful. If we are still in the states next year we will make a trip out to Bristol again, hopefully we can see the Jousting event then and share the excitement on video and on our blog with more enthusiasm.
