Bath

We took two-days off last Thursday and Friday (the astute among you will note that that means I had a one day work week), and headed to Bath. Though it’s very accessible by rail, we didn’t know precisely what time we wanted to come/go (you have to book specific times on the train), and the ticket booking was going to cost in the realm of £80 – £100 for the two of us; so instead, we hired a Nissan Micra and drove ourselves there.

Our first order of business (not including parking, finding our apartment, or eating, that is) was to join a free walking tour. It was great – our tour guide was a very enthusiastic lady who had an interesting voice and a lovely jacket. We learned all about the city’s vibrant history, and saw almost the entire place on foot.

This here is Kristy, standing in front of Royal Crescent. The guy who designed this had quite the fascination in Masonic symbols, so he made this street to symbolise the crescent moon.

This one – called “The Circus” – is the symbol of the sun. It’s actually a complete circle; this is just one quarter of it. According to our guide, Nick Cage owns one of the places in the middle. Wikipedia seemingly doesn’t agree. Anyway, the tour ended up lasting for about two and a half hours – and it was all for free! It was a perfect introduction to the city.

Next on the agenda (not that we had an agenda; it’s just what we did next) was the Twilight Package at Thermae Bath Spa. Thermae is the only natural thermal spa that operates in Bath (or in fact, in all of Britain). Their twilight package entitles you to three hours of lazing in the hot baths and saunas, as well as dinner and a drink in their restaurant. As you can probably guess, it was a very stressful experience, especially sitting in the spa on the roof watching the sun set. (Well, to be truthful, it was raining, so we were more just watching the light grow dimmer, but it was still great!) We left the baths feeling very relaxed indeed, and after sharing some wine and snacks at a local restaurant, we turned in for the night.

First thing Friday morning, we headed straight to the old Roman Baths to have a peek. They include an audio tour with the admission fee, and I was pleased to see that it was earphone-enabled, so I plugged in my buds and took plenty of photos. Good lord, is that audio tour boring! After about three stops I switched to the kids version, which not only contained the exact same information, but was far more entertaining due to all the comical voices.

The baths themselves on the other hand, are anything but boring! The Romans were just so darned clever – the engineering that went in to the place was magnificent! Actually it was pretty disgusting learning about how people lived back in the day; apparently, people never drank water, let alone took baths in it – once or twice a year was “more than enough”. Eeeewwww!

It’s no wonder they thought Bath was a mystical place of healing – it was really just that it cleaned all the disgusting toxins out of their skin! (And given that the ladies rubbed arsenic on their skin to make it look white, and that their lipstick was full of mercury, they would have been quite full of toxins!)

One clever doctor came up with the idea of getting people to drink the water as well as bathing in it (though not the same water, I presume) – and to this day you can go upstairs and have yourself a taste. And taste it we did – it’s warm, and it has a distinctly metallic flavour. I think I’ll stick to San Pellegrino for now.

We had covered most things that we wanted to do in Bath by this stage, so we stopped briefly for a fantastic brunch and coffee at a little café called Same Same but Different, and then headed back to the car for the uneventful drive back to London. Kristy fell asleep. I soldiered on. I’m such a trooper!