England #20 – an easy day in Bath at last in The England Chronicles - May 2017

Sunday, May 7, 2017 – our first full day of the Bath and Nearby(ish) Areas week! After the bizarrely long and exhausting drive up from Cornwall on Saturday, we’d decided to have an easy, low-driving day and just hang out in Bath. Peasedown St. John is only a few miles south of Bath’s city center, and there was a parking lot (a car park!) on the same side of town, so that was quite handy as it meant very little driving through the city itself. The parking was kind of pricey in Bath – I see from perusing my travel journal notebook that six hours was 7 1/2 pounds (about $10 US), while the same amount of time in Glastonbury was half that. But it was an extremely handy spot, very close to the city center, and well worth it. Bath is a massive tourist attraction, so of course everything is expensive.

This was actually the third time we’ve been to Bath – we went on both previous trips. And if you ever get the chance, GO TO BATH. It’s absolutely stunning. It’s been a tourist spot since the Roman days – it became a spa town in 60 AD- and the Roman Baths are big tourist draws today. The whole city is full of gorgeous Georgian architecture built with honey colored Bath stone. There’s a 7th century abbey, museums, theatres, lots of shopping, great food… it was amazing. Jane Austen lived there for a number of years, although sadly she didn’t care for Bath. She set two of her novels there – Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, and as Bath was a massive social destination at the time, it was perfect for describing early 1800s society. I am very sorry to report that we STILL did not go to the Jane Austen museum, though. Again we went to their gift shop, but never did do the museum. Kim was stressed out about money, as she has been as long as I’ve known her, and we did tour the Roman Baths which was around $20 apiece, and that looked like it was a better choice than the Jane Austen museum which was not much less and didn’t get the glowing recommendations from travel guides that I would expect.

We had two trips to Bath this time, although I really expected we would go more than that since we were staying so close to it – but we took so many other trips that we didn’t have enough time. Two was great, though! This first day, Sunday, we’d slept in and taken our time, so we were relaxed and ready to explore. We’d planned to do the Roman Baths that day and maybe Jane Austen, but it was REALLY crowded, so we decided to wait till we went back during the week. That was a good move, since although it was busy the day we went back too, there weren’t crowds lined up outside the entrance like there was on Sunday. So really all we did was walk around for hours. Walk around and go ooooooh!!!!

There are so many pretty tiles in Bath-

There had been a music festival – I think maybe the day before – and there were notes hanging in the air all over the place.

Bath Abbey. It is very impressive, and I finally did at least go inside on our second day there. I was hoping to take the tower tour, which reportedly includes fantastic views of the city, but they were all booked up. I did get to see the inside, though. I’ll post pictures of that later since it wasn’t the same day as this.

We stopped at the Pig and Fiddle for beer and a little lounging about. We’d also stopped at Starbucks, of course, pretty much as soon as we found it. I posted the picture below on Facebook with the caption, “Cathedral? What massive medieval cathedral?!? Coffee!!!!!!!!”

The Pig and Fiddle – a very nice pub where I had a Smugglers Ale – a bitter and very tasty real ale. With a picture way down below – I keep getting my pictures out of order here.

We started out at the table by the window to the right, then Kim moved one table back because the sun was pouring in on her and she didn’t want to get fried. So I stretched out in the window seat and watched Bath go by.

There’s my pint! Sitting on the fun comics tablecloth.

Bath loves its colored doors. So do I!

And its attractive tiles. This should be up there with the other tile, but oh well.

We walked across Pulteney Bridge, and then down below to the banks of the River Avon. Pultney Bridge is so cool – it was built in 1774 and has shops on both sides across the entire span of the bridge. You can’t even tell it’s a bridge when you’re on it. There are only four bridges in the world with shops across it on both sides, according to Wikipedia.

This was in the window of a chemist shop on the bridge, and if I’m not very mistaken I bought a tube of fever blister medicine there on my first Bath trip, since I’d managed to get several fever blisters and ran out of my Abbreva. This trip I took extra lysine before and during, and made very sure not to skip any despite the time changes and overnight flights, and remained happily without a single fever blister.

Coming out at the bottom of the bridge.

The arches of the bridge and the River Avon.

This map shop was actually on the bridge – out of order!

More bridge, more River Avon.

I found this amusing, and I’m not sure why.

As we were walking by the river, we saw a bunch of hot air balloons!

There were lots of canal boats on the river.

We had dinner at Charm, a Thai restaurant. It was one of our rare not-a-pub meals, and it was REALLY REALLY good. We split two seafood dishes- a prawn with ginger and a seafood and cashew sauce. They were so good I could have licked my plate. I also had a very fancy cocktail made of vodka, ginger, lime, and (oddly) beer. I noted in my travel journal that it was “weird but delicious”.

Of COURSE there will be more Bath pictures. I think I’ll just do both Bath days together, even though one was Sunday and the other one was Thursday. Same with Glastonbury and Avebury, which we visited several times.

Last updated May 02, 2018