Roman Baths

Today, we were up early and ready to drive to Bath. It's not far from Bristol, maybe 50 minutes by car, so we had a leisurely drive, only challenged by finding the right place to park and how to pay for it. We did not get this last part quite correct and ended up with a £50 fine which I have disputed on good grounds. I await the verdict.

Bath is amazing. What a day! We had an 11am walking tour of the city already booked and we met our fabulous guide, Charlotte, from Newcastle upon Tyne, in the square, just along from the Pump Room at the front door of Bath Abbey.

Charlotte's tour took us around the outside of the Abbey to a statue of Blodad, a mythical king of Britain who supposedly found the healing properties of the spring waters that come up through the earth in Bath. It was a great story; leprosy, herd of pigs, mud, waters, healing, bang let's build a city here.

From here we saw the Pulteney Bridge, one of four in Europe, that has shops either side of it. It actually looks better from the side rather than down it, as you wouldn't even know you were crossing a bridge by going over it. It just looks like the street either side of it. But from the side, it is beautiful arched stone bridge. The River Avon runs underneath and is just lovely to watch.

Our tour then took us into the heart of the old city to look at different architecture, especially by a fellow called John Wood, then ultimately up to the Circus, the famous circle of homes around a park. Wood set all manner of Masonic emblems into the layout. The centre of the little wood in the middle of the Circus allows a single clap to be echoed in a magical way so that it comes back almost as loud as when it went forth. I tried it and gained the approbation of the nodding participants of our tour who were clearly impressed with my echo adroitness.

Just around from the Circus, we went to the even more famous Royal Crescent. Its Georgian mansions stand tall in a majestic semi-circle, seeming to say, "You dare knock on my door, Urchin? Be off with you." The Royal Crescent is always used for movies set in Bath so you've probably seen it in some of the Jane Austen adaptations. We walked back down to the city via the special gravel path that the Georgian high society requested so they would have an easier way back down the hill to the city. It is exactly where Captain Wentworth proposed to Anne Elliot in Austen's novel Persuasion which I only just re-read prior to our coming to the UK. In fact, the recent movie filmed the proposal on the actual gravel path here in Bath. And I was standing on it. So touristy! But pretty cool huh.

Our guided tour was over but for one last look at at an Austenian place of interest. In Trim Street, Jane Austen and family lived as their last base in Bath. Apparently, she did not like the city. Too noisy, too rambunctious. Still, it was nice to see where she lived for a while.

After our tour ended, our ticket price included the Roman Baths. Now I have to say that I was not prepared to be as blown away by the Roman Bath as I was. Its antiquity goes back to Roman Britain, Britannia, and it was used by the Romans as not only a major bath house, but its adjacent temple to Sulis Minerva served as part of their religion too. The Temple is gone, but the bath remains in all its Roman glory.

You step out firrst up on the upper floor, a surrounding walkway, and gaze down upon it beneath you. All around you are statues of Roman emperors, starting with Julius Caesar, not quite an emperor, and ending down the other end of this vast rectangle with Hadrian and Constantine.

Ultimately, you make your way down various stairs and through various rooms with museum treasures and explanations down to the level where the Romans would walk into the water. You can't bathe in it today, but the water is very warm and bubbles up from a natural spring from rain that fell ten thousand years ago. You can see the natural spring and you can see the engineering prowess of the Romans to have it pumped through into the bath and some of the heat into sauna-type rooms. Simply amazing. I must say the Roman Baths are not just very clever, they are also very beautiful to look at. I ended up buying a water-colour of them in the shop.

A quick look through the Abbey followed. Beautiful, old, interesting, lots of people just sitting around in there looking and thinking. The vaulted ceilings, a vanilla coloured light spectacular. Angel statues playing musical instruments. Lunch in a Bath cafe called Rosarios, then home to Bristol where we had a walk, Chris had a barber's appointment, then we had a drink at the Bank Tavern, a little out of the way pub down one of the side-streets before treating ourselves tonight to our first real take-away meal since arriving, KFC. A delicious and familiar taste. A wonderful day I will never forget.Read more