Bath and Bristol


Royal Crescent
In this final phase of study, I felt a bit stressed out due to my final design project (MSc Thesis). I need to have a break during this stressful yet tiring stage so I proposed a road-trip to Bath and Bristol. My friend and I preferred to rent a car instead of going by train/bus as it was a lot cheaper. We heard that Bath is beautiful and we had never been there previously so we intended to visit them. We hired a car from Europcar, a well-trusted rent-car company in the Europe. They accept Indonesian driving license as long as we do not stay longer than one year since we arrived to the UK.

The Circus
Beautiful buildings in Bath
The trip to Bath took a 2-hour journey with a slight congestion. When we arrived in Bath, we looked for parking lot that has long duration as we wanted to walk by foot there. We parked our car in The Podium Car Park as it has a large area for parking and longer duration compared to street parking area. Our first stop was The Circus and then Royal Crescent. It is truly suitable for those who love to do picnic especially on summer days. We also walk around the Bath city, as it has scenery similar to most cities in European countries. If you're currently in the UK and have no time to visit European countries, Bath represents this very well. You can also visit Roman Baths and try the Royal Bath Spa for a quite expensive experience. Don't forget to have a nice cuppa tea or coffee in one of the coffee/tea shops here for a more relaxing ambience.


As the time is running out (and the time for parking is limited to 4 hours only), we then moved to Bristol. We visited Clifton Suspension Bridge (yeah we're those civil engineering geeks). There is a petite castle as well near the bridge, as the great view of the bridge can only be seen from there. Unfortunately the weather was not really good so we need to go home in the evening. We went back to Coventry and stopped to ALDI for grocery shopping (in case you wanna know lol).  
Clifton Suspension Bridge




How to Fast during Traveling (Euro-trip in Particular)


One of my goals when I had the opportunity to study in Europe is take a euro-trip. Either it's by train, bus, or car, I want to feel and see the beauty of Europe by my own eyes. It is very hard to arrange the euro-trip from England, as I have to apply for Schengen visa, as well as looking for the right moment to do the trip. Apparently master degree in the UK has a very tight schedule as it is only 1 year calendar academic. Moreover, every course in each uni has different schedule so I can only have the chance to travelling with my course-mate (apparently my house-mate too lol). We then noticed that after term 2 exam, we will have like a 3-week holiday before starting our final project dissertation. That's the only possible dates so we applied for Schengen visa earlier, and chose Italian embassy for the application process as we will spend more days in Italy.

I have mentioned and shared my journey on each place during my euro-trip on previous posts, and maybe you also noticed that my trips were done during Ramadan. If you have questions in mind like, did I fast? The answer is, yes. So how did I fast during my journey while it was on summer and I should fast for 18-19 hours a day? Here I would like to share the tips if you're gonna have the same condition where you should travel for days while fasting, particularly during summer time.

Mostly fasting in European countries during summer will have iftar (breakfasting time) at 9-10 pm. You may also find some restaurants or fast food corners that are closed during that time. My suggestion is, you can have fun all day in one city until 6 pm circa (or maybe earlier if you're tired). I suggest that time to finish your journey because it is hard to perform praying during the trip so you may pray for Zuhur and Ashar in the accommodation after travelling. If you have finished your wandering, you can look for a place to buy meals. For this case, you can always buy the food for iftar and don't forget to buy some for sahur as well, earlier before the shops are close. You may choose like take-away option, or buy frozen food that can be reheated later and eat in the hotel/apartment. You may take a power nap before iftar time, as you'll be more tired after wandering around and fasting at the same time. Once you have had your iftar, you may have your prayer afterwards. The time between Maghreb and Isha is very near so you can read Quran between the two prayers. Once you have finished all the prayers (you can also have Tarawih if you're not too tired), you can have your sahur then. Remember, don't take too much food during your iftar because you need to reload your stomach for sahur too before the morning prayer. If you're lucky enough, there are places near Mosque in some part of the European countries so you may join for iftar until Tarawih prayer. The morning prayer in Europe summer time is usually at 2 am, so after finishing your prayer and had sahur, you can wait for the morning prayer. If the morning prayer is due at 3 am, you may take a nap after Isha (and Tarawih if possible), then wake up again at 3 am to have sahur and then take the morning prayer. I'm sure you will not have any difficulties regarding Kiblat as it is easily accessed by many applications on any smartphones. You can have a full rest after all your prayers and sahur. Don't worry, summer days in Europe last for hours, so you can start your journey at a very late time like 10 or 11 am (or maybe 12) in the morning and finish the journey during iftar time if necessary.

Another thing is, you can always bring a little Quran during your journey, and have a read between prayers, or during your journey between cities in the train, bus, or plane. You can also rely on e-Quran on your smartphone but I prefer a physical one. I also did my prayers during journeys between cities. People will always notice but who cares? As long as we fulfilled our obligations during Ramadan it is fine. It's normal as well to have a drool during the days, I also wanted to have gelato during my trip in Italy, or croissants when in Paris. You can have gelato after iftar as gelateria are everywhere like every 100m available in Italy. If you crave for foods like croissants or pizza, you may have them for or after iftar. Don't forget to check your accommodation is it near many restaurants or not, so you don't have to go farther from your place if you want to buy foods for iftar or sahur. If you have a very long journey like 2-3 weeks, maybe you can break one or two fasting days but I don't suggest that as I'm not a mufti of such who has that ability to measure the allowable things in Islam or vice versa (plus, you travel for fun, not for a critical thing). Hope these tips can help, and you may ask me further questions regarding this topic if this thread is not thoroughly covering your search.
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