Bristol might well be the coolest, the most trendy, the best and the hippest city to visit or live, according to every writer of travel guides from New York to London.

But like everywhere on the planet, Bristol is not immune to the steady march of homogenisation - whether that's the same bus stops in Brislington as you get in Bridlington or the same run of Greggs, MacColls and Ladbrokes replacing local, family-owned businesses creating a place where, as Damon Albarn shouted in Blur's Bank Holiday, 'all the High Streets look the same'.

So perhaps we need to share and cherish those locations in space and time where Bristol is very much Bristol. The places and moments which could only be Bristol, and nowhere else.

You will, of course, have your own - those favourite spots in the city that mean Bristol to you, the places you take the cousins from out of town when they come to visit and ask to see the city, your city.

You may, of course, disagree with our list, but if we had unlimited time, a bus pass and the dosh, this is where we'd go to show people Bristol.

The Slider

The Slider, a rock slide between the Clifton Observatory and the Suspension Bridge

Yes, obviously you're going to be expecting the Clifton Suspension Bridge, and while that is the jewel in the city's tourism crown, the Slider is where you go when you are growing up in Bristol and your parents take you to see it.

Smoothed by a million bums over the centuries, it is a rite of passage, and mind the bump at the bottom.

Star and Garter

Party to re launch the Star and Garter public House in Montpelier after it has been renovated

This pub in Montpelier was, for 25 years one of the key places in the Bristol music scene, the spiritual home of DJ Derek, and the spot where many a late night was had.

It closed for more than a year following the death of its landlord, Dutty Ken, but reopened this week under the management of Glastonbury Festival chief Malcolm Haynes, a man who remarkably, was able to get Dave Chapelle to come and do the bingo.

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Troopers Hill

Troopers Hill

While many cities have formal Victorian parks, Bristol's organic growth, history and natural geography means it has lots of semi-rural green spaces, old country estates and places of rambling natural beauty.

So you could go to Blaise Castle, Ashton Court, Oldbury Court or Stoke Park, but Troopers Hill is so very Bristol - rare butterflies and kinds of lichen found nowhere else in the south west in the ruins of the city's industrial past.

Outside the Old Duke

King Street is home to lots of great pubs - but The Old Duke is quite special

Step inside the Old Duke and look at the ceiling, and there are posters for all the legendary jazz singers and players who have graced the tiny stage in the corner of this city centre pub.

Outside is the place to be, though, on a sunny Saturday afternoon or a warm summer's evening, with Welsh Back on one side, the pirate-era beauty of the Llandoger Trow and King Street's buzz all around you.

Vale Street on Easter Sunday

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Just about noon, at the top of this Totterdown Street, to be precise. The annual egg-rolling on Vale Street, the steepest residential street in Britain, is an informal, barmy and gloriously silly joy to behold.

The children go first, and soon the collection of broken casualties litters the first kerb. The course changes year after year depending on if a bike has been left chained to a lamppost, or if someone on one side of the street has got scaffolding up, but sometimes, someone's egg ends up rolling into the next street, and down to the Bath Road.

Turbo Island

Turbo Island

It's a strange, no-man's land that has been left untended and unowned, thanks to a quirk of the law. It's technically owned by the company that owns the advertising hoarding behind it, who leave it empty so that people can see their advert.

But that means it's private property, so no council bylaws about sitting on sofas around a campfire drinking Natch can touch it, or you.

Usually there's someone always there, keeping guard like a nightwatchman, but it might be 1am when the party gets started. Turbo Island is a Bristol institution, has better TripAdvisor reviews than a lot of proper tourist attractions, is potentially dangerous, but never dull.

The Downs on a Saturday afternoon

Clifton Down and Durdham Down, or The Downs to you and me, are areas of ancient common land unique to Bristol. Lots of things happen on them, but the most particularly Bristol bit is the Downs League.

In and of itself, in the world of amateur grassroots football, the Downs League is unique - it's said to be the biggest league in Europe where all the games are played in the same place, and it's also the only FA-affiliated league that is part of, but separate to, the Football Association's non-league pyramid system.

Basically, this means that it is its own little football bubble. Anyone winning the first division of the Downs League cannot and will never go up to another division or league with aspirations to play one day against the likes of Bristol Manor Farm, then Bristol Rovers, then Bristol City.

Any given Saturday in autumn, winter and spring, the Downs are suddenly covered with goalposts and corner flags - brought up by a council truck that was specially built just for that purpose.

Footballers from all over Bristol come to the Downs to play - and in this very Bristol of places, it's a very Bristol thing.

Eat A Pitta in Broadmead

Eat a Pitta is one of Bristol's favourite lunch spots

There's four Eat-A-Pittas, but the one in Broadmead is the best because it is just so damn handy for everyone on a trip into town.

Like Miss Millie's and pitching snow, it's one of those Bristol-only things you don't realise the rest of the world don't have or do. It's so ingrained in Bristol life that you kind of assume there are Eat-a-Pittas all over the country. There aren't. We're lucky. So savour the huge salad and warm falafels even more.

The Northern Slopes

The Northern Slopes in South Bristol

South Bristol's best-kept secret. There are, in fact, four wild, magical, breathtaking open spaces that form the steep green slope between Bedminster and Knowle West, but they are more than four names for them.

On the western side, Novers Common gives cracking views across to Ashton Court, the Suspension Bridge and the city centre, then round to Kingswear, Glyn Vale and the Bommie, or Wedmore Vale, from which the whole of east Bristol lies before you.

Just don't mention the perfect view for the Balloon Fiesta, because everyone will go there.

Bar 501

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Most people know it better as the 501 Cafe, but it is the spiritual home of darts in Bristol. The city has quite a pedigree of darts, and Bar 501 in Staple Hill is the home venue for Bristol's professionals Steve Brown and Mark Dudbridge, and was the location of this in-depth interview with Chris Mason, possibly the greatest naturally-talented darts player the city has produced.

It's got six widescreen TVs, and there is always sport on.

Castle Park

Born out of the tragedy and carnage of the Blitz, Castle Park was created on what was once the original historic city centre of Bristol.

Now it is the city centre's park, and is cherished and mocked equally by the people of Bristol.

It's where the city's spliff-tokers go to mark 420, and on any given warm summer's evening, there are myriad of disciplines on display.

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Take a seat, crack open a can - in defiance of the ban on drinking alcohol - and watch the slack-liners and poi experts getting serious.

Three Lions on Flag Day

Bristol City fans gathered at the 3 Lions pub for the annual Flag Day ahead of their sides first game of the season

It's a fittingly bonkers Bristol boozer on a regular day, whether there's karaoke, drum and bass or men dressed as octupuses predicting World Cup fixtures.

But on the first Bristol City Saturday home game of the season, the place is a carnival of flags, red smoke, traffic-blocking ciderheads and chants.

The Bearpit

Life in the Bearpit squat of March and April 2019

Possibly the most controversial place in Bristol, the Bearpit is many things to many different people.

Thousands love it as a beacon of Alternative Bristol. Thousands more call for it to be filled in with concrete every time the latest twist in its saga is played out on these pages.

Others still have a vision for it as a community-led environmentally and ethically focussed foodie haven. Others still want it to be an anarchic base for some kind of homelessness support.

It is currently, at the time of writing, home to more than 30 squatters who are refusing to budge in protest at the 'failure of an experiment' to give over control of the space to a couple of food businesses and as an art space for the People's Republic of Stokes Croft (see Turbo Island).

It's a strange coincidence that, while it is on this itinerary to showcase the places that are 'So Bristol' to our out-of-town cousins, they may well have already stumbled across it having got off the Megabus.

It is really only in Bristol that a place can be a roundabout to one person, and a state-of-mind to another.

St Nick's Market

Matina at St Nicholas Market

The Tobacco Factory Market is a mere young hipster upstart - the place to show Bristol's uniqueness is St Nick's. For a start, there's the history.

It is so Bristol, in fact, it has a clock which tells Bristol Time as well Greenwich Mean Time. It has the 'nails' on which deals were done that gave the English language the phrase 'On The Nail', and inside it has Beast Clothing, the place you can learn to speak Bristolian by reading t-shirts.

Dean Lane Skatepark

Dame Emily Park skatepark

It's big, it was the first big established skatepark in Bristol, it is on the site of an old coalmine and it is the spot that spawned two of Bristol's biggest global exports - street art and music.

Renato's

Outside Renato's in Kings Street

Another King Street stalwart,  Renato's, near the Old Vic has always been a Bristol late drink institution and favourite with students and thesps but it also does decent and cheap pizza.

Barton Hill Boxing Gym

The 'hall of fame' at Barton Hill Dug Out

Bristol is a boxing city, with a boxing mayor, world champions and boxing gyms all over the place. So no grand tour of Bristol would be complete without a visit to one - just ask Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, who visited Empire earlier this year.

So it could be there, it could be Skemer's in Knowle West - saved and visited recently by the Mayor - or it could be Paddy John's in Kingswood, or any of the others, but for special Bristolness, head to Barton Hill. The boxing gym there used to the youth club, and back in the 1980s and early 90s the place where the likes of Jody, Inkie and Cheo learned how to turn Bristol into their canvas.

Memorial Stadium on a Saturday afternoon

Bristol Rovers Manager Darrell Clarke (r) celebrates after Lee Brown's injury-time winner secures promotion to League One in 2016

For decades the home of Bristol's rugby team, and now the very unique home to Bristol Rovers.

The Mem is much-loved, much-derided and cherished by Rovers fans as their home, the place that brought their team back to Bristol from its years in Bath, and now provides an authentic, old-school, proper taste of football, cider and pies.

The Grecian

The Grecian has become a Bristol institution
The Grecian has become a Bristol institution

When news broke of a fire at The Grecian kebab and pizza more than 18 months ago, a significant proportion of Bristol's population held its breath.

The fire was a major incident, but nothing will keep Gloucester Road and its students and hungry partying hordes from their pizza and kebabs, and it opened the next day like the troopers they are.

City Road on Carnival Day

St Paul's Carnival in full swing in 2018

It began as a festival to showcase St Paul's African-Caribbean community's culture and stage a party to which the whole of Bristol was invited.

And ever since then - apart from the mid-2010s - it has done just that, and then some.

City Road is a bustling, busy throughfare on most days of the week, but for one Saturday in July, it is the most popular place to be in Britain.

Narrow Quay on a summer's evening

The water's edge by The Arnolfini

To be more precise, outside the Arnolfini, with your feet dangling over the edge of the harbour wall, with a Thatcher's Gold and the sounds of someone else's music on the breeze.

The boats chug by, there'll be hot air balloons floating over the amphitheatre opposite, and on any given after-work evening, this is so very Bristol.

Beese's on a Sunday lunchtime

A ferry arrives at Beese's

Another of Bristol's best-kept secrets, Beese's is a difficult to access cafe, restaurant and bar on the banks of the River Avon at the bottom of a steep, rough track down a side street in Broomhill, on the edge of Brislington, it supplies Sunday lunches to die for. Most people get there by boat - with special trips organised from the city centre along the River Avon running regularly.

Ashton Gate under the floodlights

Korey Smith nets the winner against Manchester United

It's been radically redesigned, rebuilt, refurbished and improved, but Ashton Gate - the home of Bristol City since the first days of the 20th century - is a very Bristol place.

Many of the upper seats provide a view of the Suspension Bridge, and there is nothing quite like a midweek evening match for that electric atmosphere.