England #3- Spending the day in lovely Bath in The England Chronicles - September 2024

(Monday September 9, 2024)

After all the trials we experienced in getting to England and then getting to Bath (and we were very very excited despite the assorted difficulties - once we did finally land at Heathrow a week late we were all “OMG OMG WE’RE HERE, WE’RE IN ENGLAND!!!!!”) Monday was a wonderful low-key day in gorgeous Bath. We’ve been to Bath every time we’ve been to England, and last time Kim and I went, in 2017, we stayed outside Bath again, although a little further away in the adorably-named Peasedown St John. So we are very familiar with Bath and absolutely love it. This time we did several things we hadn’t done before - visited the Jane Austen Center (we’d been to the gift shop every trip but for one reason and another we’d never taken the tour), had tea at Sally Lund’s, took a tour of the cathedral, strolled through the Royal Victoria Park, and took a boat ride down the River Avon. Not all on the same day, of course - we spent two full days in Bath. And naturally we also walked all over the place because that is what you do in Bath - walk around and say “oooooh, look at that!!!! How beautiful!!!”

(It wasn’t really as crowded as it looks in that last picture - I believe this was the entrance to the Roman Baths so a lot of people were congregating around.)

It was a surprisingly quick drive into town after our crazy convoluted one-lane-terror back road drive in the day before. The correct route was a perfectly normal street that took maybe ten minutes to arrive at the city center. And we were able to find convenient parking easily, in a lot on Charlotte Street. Although last time we were there we fed actual real money into the parking payment kiosk, now all the parking is via apps or cards. Which proved….problematic. HAHAHAHA!!! Because of course it did!!!! Later in the day after our six hours ran out!

But for that first six hours, things were fine! Oh and I will note here before I forget, I did not use one single bit of actual real physical money this entire trip. I used my card for everything, and everything in England is contactless payments now. On previous trips we’d used cards of course, but also lots of physical money. In fact I liked paying for parking with cash because it let me work on my money-counting skills without annoying people waiting in line behind me. When Kim and Baker B and I went in 2011 we got UK money from the bank before we left. This time I just took a bunch of leftover coins I had plus a ten pound note -  I think about 20 pounds total -  and planned to get some from a cash machine when we got there. I never did need to get cash. I tried to use my ten pound note in Glastonbury and the cashier stared at it in astonishment and said it wasn’t valid anymore because the currency had changed (it seems thicker and more plasticy now), but they said I could trade it in at a bank. So I did, at one of the very very handy Post Offices there which also serve as a bank, and then I didn’t ever use it.

Point being, we did not need cash at all. And you can just tap your card on the payment screens there. Theoretically you can here too, but mine often doesn’t work and I still have to stick it into the slot. England is always way ahead of us payment-wise. On our very first trip in 2010 our cards didn't have chips, which caused problems everywhere we went. The only exception to things being so easy there was the strange (to me) payment method at gas/petrol stations, where you actually have to go inside to pay - here it's all pay at the pump with your card, and has been forever. 

ANYHOW, we got parked, paid with an app, and set off to wander the city at last! The first place we wandered to was Quiet Street Coffee. We were constantly in search of coffee! There was no coffee maker at our Airbnb (not really that unusual in England except that there WAS ground coffee there, but no instant, so we wondered if there had been a coffee machine that met an untimely end). Being addicts, we had to forage for coffee daily, even after buying some instant that night. Instant is just…better than nothing, but not the same as actual real drip coffee. Quiet Street Coffee was very nice - delicious coffee and excellent pastries. I ordered a flat white and a scone with raspberry jam and clotted butter which is the most delicious thing ever. And then we had to leave despite there being plenty of seats available inside, since we had no idea that if you order your coffee and scone to take away, you do in fact have to take it away! You can’t sit inside with your to-go stuff, at least not everywhere. We did at Nero later on but that’s like Starbucks, so apparently not so stringent. We got takeaway because we thought we could eat the scones there then take the coffee with us, but we ended up enjoying them on a bench further down the street. 

Proof that we made it! I am making notes of our coffee and scones in my travel journal which I actually did a pretty good job of documenting the trip with:

 Kim is looking cheery as always:

And of course as per the usual I have gone on and on and on, so I’ll continue this tomorrow. Maybe. I am going to try really really hard to get this done in a timely manner, unlike all my other England Trip Travelogues, which take forEVER, and I think last time I didn’t finish until nearly a year after we left, which was ridiculous. Fingers crossed!