Our Bath Adventure

When we told some of you that we were going to Bath on Wednesday, at least two of you retorted, "Oh, I bath every day!" You know who you are. In any case, go to Bath we did, courtesy of another set of cheap busfares on National Express. This was actually Bob's third time in Bath, and since he had visited the central tourist attraction in Bath once before, he wandered around Bath for 45 minutes while I coughed up the £11 admission fee to have a look inside the Roman Baths, housed in the building on the near left of this photo:

The only hot springs in the UK, and one of the best-preserved Roman baths in the world, the first sight in the complex is the impressive open-air Great Bath:

With Bath Abbey in the background, the Great Bath makes for a dramatic sight, although in Roman times, this bath would have been covered.

Inside the complex, excavated artifacts gave some sense of the decor that would have graced the Roman baths, including ruins from the temple pediment,

a gilt bronze head of Minerva,

a carving of Hercules Bibax that functioned as support for the ceremonial altar,

a stone fragment of a hand holding a thunderbolt (also probably from the altar),

and fragments from a 4th-century marine mosaic.

The 12th-century King's Bath is built around the original Sacred Spring which still dispenses 1.17 million litres of 46.5'C water every day!

The goddess Luna would have looked down from one of the pediments:

This woman's head is thought to have been a tomb adornment; the hairstyle dates to the first century.

Much of the roof that originally covered the Great Bath was found in the 1880s in various states of disrepair. This fragment was found in the Great Bath itself and shows the box construction that the Romans used to reduce the overall weight of the roof:

An original Roman drain removes excess water from the Sacred Spring (flowing at a constant rate of 13 litres/second) and drains it into the River Avon a few hundred metres away.

Here's the overflow from the Sacred Spring that then leads into the drain:

On the lower level of the Great Bath, you can see water flowing into the bath itself.

Back inside the complex, some of the floors have been excavated:

The Circular Bath is where bathers cooled off, plunging into the cold water before returning to the hot bath. Now the pool appears to be used as a wishing well, and the coins lining the bottom of the pool make the pool shine. In addition, projections of life-sized bathers move around the pool, doing what bathers would have done all that time ago. I was going to say that Bob came with me into the Roman Baths, but got too hot, had to have a swim here to cool off, and I took a photo of him towelling off without him noticing, but somehow I couldn't really type that story with a straight face.

The adjoining Pump Room was a social hub for the Georgians who rediscovered the Roman baths and needed a place to see and be seen spa-ing.

An admission ticket to the baths includes a complimentary glass of spring water from the King's Spring, so I grabbed Bob from outside so he could share in my taste of 46.5'C mineral water. Here I am holding our refreshing glass of hot, metallic water!

Behind me are several practically full glasses discarded by people whose taste buds are still intact. When a woman passed by and asked me what the water tasted like, I think I was quite forgiving in my assessment: "It's kind of like what I imagine licking my watch would be like!" She decided not to spend 50p (the price for non-ticket holders) to taste for herself. The two connected squares between the baths and the abbey are tourist central, with plenty of people milling about and almost as many buskers. Most of the performers we passed today were actually quite good, and this man had the best sign of the day:

A church has stood here since the 7th century, but the present Bath Abbey was built between 1499 and 1616:

The most striking aspect of the exterior depicts a vision that is said to have inspired Bishop Oliver King to build the current abbey: angels climbing up and down a ladder to heaven.

The bishop's name also appears on the abbey exterior, in the form of olive trees surrounded by crowns.

The fan-vaulted ceiling reminded us of Cambridge's King's College Chapel:

The city motto is inscribed on this statue outside the abbey:

We made a brief stop at the Assembly Rooms, where the upper classes came to dance, gossip, and play cards. Originally opened in 1771, the building was severely damaged in a 1942 air bombing, but has since been restored. This is one of the rooms--the "tea room," used for concerts as well as tea.

The entire city of Bath is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, not only for the Roman baths, but for the distinctive Bath architecture of Georgian buildings crafted out of honey-tinted Bath stone. Of these buildings, the Circus is the second-most important:

A small greenspace surrounded by three expansive curved buildings,

my favourite part of the Circus is the quirky detailing that forms a ribbon running the length of the buildings.

It's difficult to get used to all the buildings in a city being the same colour--I'm not sure I like such an expanse of uniformity. I definitely like this old library sign though:

Both sides of Robert Adams's Pulteney Bridge are lined with shops:

Here's a view of the same shops from the other side,

with the weir in the River Avon below:

We came across a view of the back of the other side of the bridge as we looked for a bench on which to picnic (they're scarce, I tell you).

These women cleverly brought their own bench:

Our next stop was at the Victoria Art Gallery, home to Bath's central art collection.

Although the ground floor was closed while a new temporary exhibit was being installed, we walked through the small, but interesting, first-floor permanent collection

and I took this photo from the gallery staircase.

We returned to the courtyard between the abbey

and the baths

to join a free walking tour put on by the city of Bath. Although I'm sure our guide had the best of intentions, I'm sorry to say that we only stuck with the two-hour tour for about twenty minutes. Too much drawn-out, dry relaying of dates and names and not enough lively tour-giving, I'm afraid. During our twenty minutes, we passed Cross Bath, one of the city's original spa baths, now redeveloped as part of the recently-opened Thermae Bath Spa complex;

the Hetling Pump Room, now the visitor centre for the Thermae Bath Spa;

and the centrepiece of the spa, the rooftop New Royal Bath.

After we left the tour group, Bob was afraid that we'd cross paths with our nice but boring guide, and asked me several times if I thought that looked like our tour group up ahead. All of his sightings were phantom ones though, so we were spared the dreaded awkward reunion. One of the sights that the tour must have taken in eventually was Royal Crescent, the most famous building in the city, after the abbey and the baths themselves.

The grand sweep of Royal Crescent makes the Circus seem tiny in comparison!

I think I still prefer the Circus, if only for the decorative details between the ground floor and the first floor.

Without much adornment on the building, this large tree stood out against the pale stone.

The sign below reads, "Private lawn: residents only." Not many residents were out on their part of the lawn this afternoon--in fact, everyone enjoying the greenspace was beyond the grassy barrier that not-so-subtly divides the haves and have-nots!

Looks like someone needs to move to a bigger house!

I wondered about the story behind this odd building, but never found out:

In a city with so little colour, I couldn't help but notice this nice piece of art!

Bath is quite a hilly place, but we didn't find the perfect vantage point for a view of the city--all we kept getting were peeks at the countryside around us.

On our way back toward the centre of town, we passed one of Jane Austen's former residences:

This was one of my favourite sights of the day:

We had coffee in a quiet courtyard

before stopping at the oldest house in Bath:

Although the house dates to 1482, there has been a building on this site since Roman times. The basement "Sally Lunn Kitchen Museum" allows visitors to peek in at this history as well as that of Sally Lunn, creator of the "world-famous" original Bath bun, the Sally Lunn bun. (I'm not making this up.)

We decided to buy one of the buns to taste later on, and were amazed to be given what appeared to be a full-size cake box!

Here's what the bun looks like (I've added the knife for scale):

And how does it taste? Well, I think Bob summed it up best: "like a giant hamburger bun." Our last stop of the day was at Parade Gardens, a wonderful spot right across from the abbey.

We settled into two deckchairs right by the River Avon and enjoyed the peaceful surroundings.

A little friend tried to jump into my shoe, but I foiled his plan.

We reluctantly eased ourselves out of the comfortable chairs and started walking toward our bus stop,

passing our starting points for the day, the abbey

and the Pump Room, now with some lovely outdoor seating.

As we headed back toward London, a hot-air balloon kept us company for quite a while!

As it had on the way out, our bus made a brief stop at Heathrow Airport--it's always strange to be at the airport when you're not going on a plane. Anyway, I thought the parking garages looked quite nice against the darkening sky.