Bath, 28-30 August 2010

After our trip to Canterbury, we planned a trip to Bath. One thing to keep in mind when going to Bath is that accomodation is not cheap. Especially when you are finding it at reasonably short notice. But this is because Bath is such a desirable destination. Anyway Emma booked the mystery hotel on Lastminute.com which ended up being the Hilton! Why not have a bit of luxury every now and then eh? (It was very nice, too, and lovely breakfast included).

Before our trip to Bath was to happen, Emma went to another musical without Rob. It was The Lion King, really a must see when in London. Em went with Sarah, and we were absolutely blown away by the costuming and staging - really really well done. Nothing new in the story, but that's what you get when you go to stage shows of movies.

We got to Bath on Saturday. It was too early to check in, so we left our bags with reception and had a look around. We were immediately impressed. Bath is gorgeous. We came across a bookshop on a side street called Mr B's. We were both taken with the way they had set up a room upstairs where one can relax with a book and have a cuppa, called the Bibliotherapy room. Really a must-see when in Bath, if you are a bibliophile.

One thing that immediately struck us was the lions. For some reason there were lions of all shape and form dotted all around the city. These are just a couple, but other favourites of ours was the one with a mane of scalpel blades, and a Monopoly lion


We loved this old fashioned "street on a bridge". Both sides of the bridge are lined with shops, like they used to be.

Over the long weekend we managed to cram in quite a lot. We were a bit sick of churches by now but had to have a look in the Bath Abbey, founded in 1499. It is famous for depicting the angels climbing Jacob's Ladder on the West face of the Abbey. You can see them in the photo below.

It was actually a lovely church and rates up there in the ones we've seen. In the centre of Bath there are some beautiful sunken gardens. You have to pay to go in though and we are far too cheap to do that so we just took photos from the top.

Another must-do in Bath is to visit the Sally Lunn bun shop. This is the oldest bakery in England. They run a tea room where they put the bun with everything, it is served under meat in a savoury main meal or sweet. A very versatile bun.

Because it is such a touristy place, there are a lot of yummy food choices. One of Em's favourites was a gelato place that had Eton Mess as one of the flavours - one of the best gelatos she's had. There is also a tempting-smelling fudge place and many restaurants, including all the usuals. Being the middle of summer, the buskers were out in force. We saw an impressive act where the guy ended up diving head first into a bucket of water. Not for the faint-hearted.

The thing Bath is famous for is, of course, the thermal waters - the only thermal spring in Britain. The old Roman Baths that were here have been skillfully excavated and is an amazing place to visit. The springs are still bubbling water up and you can go into all the many bathing rooms they had, see how they used the thermal water to heat the floors, and get a sense of ancient history. You can then have a drink of the water which is disgusting, but is supposedly very healthy.

The new thermal spa built nearby is expensive, but we were glad we went. It is built on several levels, with a warm pool on the ground floor, massage areas upstairs, then on the next level a big room with foot baths, an overgrown Powershower and four differently scented steam rooms. The top level is open air and is a large hot pool. Unfortunately it is very crowded, but we still enjoyed it as the view is extraordinary.

We decided to go on a mini-bus tour to Stonehenge. The tour promised us a trip to a small medieval village as well, which we were looking forward to more than Stonehenge after what we'd heard from others.

At Sonehenge it was extremely windy - you can get an idea from the hairstyle - and cold. The structure is roped off a long way from the stones, and you walk around listening to a very boring audio tour. Emma was less than impressed. Rob occupied himself with taking lots of photos. Finally we got to go back on the bus and we went on to Lacock - the medieval village. Our tour-guide/driver was very knowledgable about Bath and its surrounds and filled us in on the famous people that live around the place. He is from Lacock so gave us an insiders tour here. In the pub they had a lot of original features, including a wheel which a dog walked on to turn the spit over the fire. There were also quite a few original-looking characters lurking around.

The village itself is very pretty, but the cars lining the streets are a bit incongruous.

We went and saw the house that they used as Harry's mum and dad's house in the movies. Unfortunately we couldn't go in the church that had also featured in the movies as there was a wedding on.

We decided to make our trip to Bath complete we would take one of those hop-on, hop-off bus tours. It took us to some of the areas we hadn't managed to see yet. One of these was the Royal Crescent, a very upmarket place to live, and apparently where Johnny Depp has a house. It was a lovely day to play croquet.

So far, Emma's favourite destination in the U.K....