N and N's New Adventure: Day 46 Monday. July 9

Day 46, Monday July 9

A Day in Bath

Pete and Jess were off to an NHS walk in clinic for Joey whose spots are worse. We walked to the Abbey which is in the center of old town Bath. We found a visitor center and bought a ticket for the Red Bus Tours which give us a quick overview of the city.

We took the City Tour and got on the bus on the other side of the Abbey. Since it was drizzling we decided to sit inside. The bus left and went past the famous Roman Baths and then past Sally Lunn's. Sally Lunn's is a cafe and bakery that has been operational since Sally, a young French refugee, came to Bath in 1680. She started baking the bun that eventually began to carry her name. The bun is still made from the same recipe. The house is one of older buildings in Bath.

From there we went past Guildhall Market which has small shops in an open market type setting. We also went past Pulteney Bridge. It is one of three bridges in the world that is built with shops on the bridge. We also went past the modern Thermae Bath Spa where visitors can book spa sessions using the hot pools created from the underground water. We stopped at the Royal Crescent neighborhood, apparently, tour busses are not allowed to go into the neighborhood anymore. The Royal Crescent is a series of 30 houses built by individual owners with connecting walls. They follow the Georgian architecture popular between 1767-1771. All 30 homes follow the crescent shape of the moon. The fronts are all similar and have the same roof line, but the backs of the homes vary.

The bus took us past the botanical gardens and the Royal Victoria Park. The story is that Queen Victoria, at a young age, came to dedicate the park named for her. The next day a local reporter described the Queen and her clothes as dowdy. Apparently the Queen was so irritated by the comment that she refused to ever return to Bath. It was also told that she was on the royal train to Bristol, and when the train came to Bath, she had her maids pull the curtains of her car so that she would not have to lay her eyes on Bath and visa versa.

We went past many many old buildings and ended up back at the Abbey 40 minutes later.

We decided that it was time to take in the Roman Baths. The really were built by the Romans. They lay many feet below the current level of Bath because after the Romans left the city fell into ruins and was eventually covered with silt from the flooding river. The story goes that there was a row of tenement houses over the site. The basements developed a continual water problem. They started digging further to try find the issue and came upon the baths. The Baths boast a wonderful museum and water that is too polluted for anyone to swim in it. The water in one of pools is so hot that bubbles come to the surface.

From there we walked to the Fashion Museum which was a part of our tickets to the Roman Bath. Much of the fashion museum was fairly obnoxious. Fashion designers seem to be quite taken with themselves. We both enjoyed the one section that followed fashion from the 1700s through the 1800s. The public rooms upstairs were really quite pretty. The handcrafted chandeliers were quite impressive.

From there we walked to The Circus which isn't a circus at all, but a housing development from the Georgian era. The three sets of townhouses are divided into equal segments which form the neighborhood around the central park. The project was started in 1754 and was finished in 1768. We then walked on to the Crescent to take pictures.

By this time our feet were rather tired, so we hopped on the red bus and took it back to the abbey. From the abbey we walked to the Pulteney Bridge where we found some interesting shops to look in. Neil found some stamps, and I found some Murano glass charms for necklaces. We went a bit futher and found a store with antique maps. Neil found several for over 500 GBP. I saw one for over a thousand GBP. Apparently they were all originals and all old.

We walked back to Cafe Nero near our flat and had a Lemonade and used their free WiFi. On to Sainsbury's to buy supplies for dinner at the flat. Pete, Jess and Joey returned. We had dinner and then watched a couple of specials on tv....one about ship building in Glasgow and the other about building the great churches of England. Then it was bedtime.

Steps: 10,970

Water entering Roman bath