Neon Ships

It's poured with rain again today, without let up between 9am and 6pm.  So, a dark, cold, dismal sort of a March day, more Winter than Spring.  I debated going and taking a picture in the rain, but in the end decided to wait until this evening when it became drier, if no less cold and damp feeling (although that may just be psychological on my part).

I noticed the neon Mauretania sign recently when Bristol was having its festival of light.  RobBris50 blipped it ages ago I think and I meant to go take a shot myself at some stage.  

The Mauretania was the Lusitania's sister ship - an ocean going liner that held records for the time it took to cross the Atlantic about 100 years ago. Some of the fixtures and fittings from the ship ended up decorating a bar at the bottom of Park Street Bristol, known (inevitably) as the Mauretania bar. As a child we loved the neon sign and I always thought that the bar must be terribly swanky.  It may well have been once upon a time, but as they say, that ship has sailed.  Nowadays the Java bar as it has been renamed is just another Bristol bar.  But that neon sign is still rather special I think :-)