Spring was in the air, and inadvertently I was about to sniff out a bargain. Now, in these financially-strained times we all like to notch up some serious savings, if only to brag about them later in the pub while spending the money we've saved.

So may I reveal a super-cheap Bristol experience which came my way over the half-term break?

With school out, grandson number one was staying for the bulk of the day, which, as it happened was bursting with sunshine and unseasonally high temperatures (how mad is Britain that only a week earlier we were trapped in a sub-zero Arctic hell?).

Anyway, partially to escape three hours of non-stop football followed by bankruptcy playing Monopoly, my wife declared we should "go out".

Her plan was quite simple. We should take the lad to see Clifton Suspension Bridge because although he had crossed it a number of times safely cocooned inside a vehicle, he had never savoured the high life experience of walking across Brunel's Avon Gorge masterpiece.

We didn't tell him where we were going, just to retain that air of mystery and make sure he actually got in the car, and we nosed out of Keynsham and skirted the edge of the city taking in the delights of Whitchurch, Bishopsworth, Bedminster Down and Winterstoke Road before ascending Rownham Hill and parking in Leigh Woods.

He still didn't have a clue, which was nice, and his reaction was even better when we rounded the slight curve in the road and the suspension bridge hove into view.

But here's the good bit – pedestrians can cross the bridge free of charge.

I'd forgotten that, and so, too, had my wife, who was about to proffer 20p or somesuch to the man in the booth.

What a bargain!

What an experience, too. I hadn't walked across the bridge for a long while, and felt rather exhilarated by so doing. Grandson felt the same, though he had some initial trepidation, caused in no small part by the discovery of a drain hole in the pavement we were using.

Anyway, we proceeded slowly but surely, stopping in the middle to point out various landmarks, and before we knew it, the Clifton side had arrived and there before our eyes was another local landmark. And again, it was free.

I refer, of course, to the "donkey slide" – that rocky outcrop worn smooth as glass by centuries of Bristolians shuffling their posteriors down it.

It was as busy as ever, with old and young queuing to zoom down this stretch of rockface.

But we didn't stop there.

Further up was the old windmill tower which houses the camera obscura. The grandson wasn't interested in that, however. No, what fired his imagination was the notice board proclaiming this was also the entrance to "the giant's cave".

This was the first time I'd actually had to put my hand into my pocket and pay for something, and all three of us decided to descend into the very depths of the Avon Gorge.

I don't quite know what my nine-year-old grandson felt, but he sounded excited. And, do you know, I was, too.

It was a bit like a Famous Five or Secret Seven adventure as you took a sharp turn past the pay desk and entered a very different subterranean world.

At times, we adults were bent double and I was hoping that I didn't meet anyone else with a matching beer gut in any of the particularly narrow bits.

Deeper and deeper we went, until suddenly we were there in the giant's cave. A few steps later, we were having our breath taken away by standing out clear of the rockface halfway up the gorge itself on that tiny little balcony formed at the cave entrance.

Exciting? I should say so.

Back at what passes for ground level in this part of town, we all agreed that this had been £3.50 very well spent – and we still had the return trek back across the other side of the bridge to come.

Mission accomplished, we strolled back to the car, popped back down Rownham Hill and turned right for Ashton Court, another blindingly brilliant Bristol facility that costs you and me absolutely zilch to wander around.

Well, unless like me you can't resist stopping for a coffee and some cake in the cafe that was once the old stables.