Roman Baths and Bath Abbey
Today we only had one destination but like Blenheim, there was a lot to see there. We took the train from Swindon to Bath since parking was going to be an issue. When we arrived we decided to take the bus tour which is actually two separate but related bus tours. There is one that goes through town and another that goes out of town. Both were useful in terms of giving us some of the history of the city but neither were particularly good in terms of actually seeing things. I think I’d give them a miss if I came again. If the bus that goes out of town stopped in a few places with good views of the city, then I’d recommend it but you only get a few momentary glimpses, which don’t really justify the time it takes.
There are three main sights we wanted to see in Bath and we started with the oldest — the Roman baths. The water isn’t particularly warm, as hot springs go, I guess that if it’s the only hot spring in England, you have to make do with what you have. If you visit, be prepared to spend a good while there, especially if you listen to the audio guides included in the price of admission (which most of our group did).
After our visit to the baths we figured we should get something to eat. We decided that since there wasn’t a long wait, we’d give the Sally Lunn Bun a try in what is claimed to be the oldest house in Bath, Sally Lunn’s House, c. 1482. The food was quite good, although I cannot say I’ve never had better. Topped with butter, cinnamon and clotted cream, it wasn’t the bun that made the difference, in any case. I think it would have tasted good on a hard crust. Still,
The picture shown here includes the baths as well as our second destination, Bath Abbey. It isn’t the biggest church but it felt more like a church than the others we’ve visited. It was, unfortunately, too late for us to climb the tower, which would have been great, so another reason to return.
Our final, dual destination was the Circus and the Royal Crescent, Georgian town houses on a circle and an arc, respectively. They are somewhat hard to photograph, but I did my best. When we had seen those, we walked back to the train station and caught the train back to Swindon. Actually, our train was canceled and they sent us to Bristol, in the opposite direction, where we caught what turned out to be the next train through Bath, so if we had stayed there, we would have been fine, but this gave us something to do.