It’s Bath Time

February 15^th-16^th, 2024 

Naomi and I grabbed the train to Bath, which is almost directly north of Weymouth and only two hours away.  The small city, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was named after its Roman-built baths thanks to some natural hot springs.  The Romans loved to bathe and having hot water was a real luxury to find on the British Isles.

Arriving in the town of about 100,000 people, we were initially led astray by Google Maps but only walked about a block in the wrong direction.  On track, we walked through the pedestrian only shopping streets in the heart of Bath, which is where the hotel that Naomi booked was located.  Par for her course, it was another fancy accommodation called The Gainsborough Hotel.

We crossed the bridge...when we shouldn't have crossed the bridge...

On the right track.

Our hotel (stole the pic from the Internet):

Our room wasn’t ready so we ditched our bags and decided to try our luck at our first destination in Bath, the Thermae Bath Spa, which was just across the one lane street from our hotel.  Naomi had tried to make a reservation for us when we were in Weymouth but it seemed to be all booked up.  However, she did learn that they do allow a certain number of walk-ins each day.  Luckily there was no line-up at all, so we paid the exorbitant entrance fee, were handed a towel and robe, and headed to the uni-sex changeroom which had these little compartments with a door to enter and change, and then an exit door to the lockers.

The fancy spa building:

Donned in our white bathrobes, we climbed the stairs to the rooftop where one of the two large, thermal pools was located.  The water from the hot springs come out at around 45 degrees Celsius but it is cooled down to just around body temperature for the pool.  A few areas of the pool had bubbles coming up but we found that the bubbles actually brought in colder air so we didn’t stay there too long.  Eventually we found one of vents where the warmer water was coming into the pool and ended up hanging out there while enjoying the skyline of Bath.

The rooftop pool (another photo from the Internet).  You aren't actually allowed to use your smartphone in the spa.  You have to put it in a small sack that is locked by a magnet at the front desk and you can't open it until you leave.

Our entrance fee allowed us two hours at the spa so after about 40 minutes, we headed to the bottom floor to check out the pool down there where the water was a similar temperature.  There were three other floors sandwiched between the pools, one had a cafeteria and the other were “wellness rooms”.  I interpreted that as massage rooms that would most likely be an extra cost.  We didn’t even venture onto those floors but now that I’ve looked online after the fact, it looks like we missed a few fancy steam rooms.  Oh well…spas aren’t exactly my cup of tea anyways.

 

After the spa, we eventually found a restaurant for a late lunch (we passed on a pub that we went into and settled on a pizzeria).  We returned to the hotel and checked into our room.  We were both feeling pretty lazy from the bathing and the food, but Naomi suggested that we go to the Roman Baths before it closed at 6 pm.  I have to admit that I was being a “negative Nancy” and really didn’t want to go.  I looked online and sure, the reviews were high for the place but most of the reviews had the same photo of this open air, rectangular pool.  Ancient history doesn’t really turn my crank either.  However, we were only staying one night and had planned to do a walking tour in the morning, so this was really our only chance to visit the museum of the preserved thermae (an ancient facility for bathing).  I finally agreed to Naomi’s suggestion and we took the short two-minute walk to the Roman Baths.

Enjoying a drink at the pizzeria:

At the entrance to the Roman Baths...you can see that I'm already into my audio tour:

The foyer had a beautiful domed roof:

The Roman Baths were constructed between 60 and 70 AD, only a few decades after the Romans arrived on the British Isles, and were used until the 5th century AD, when the Roman’s rule in Britain ended.  The baths were used on and off over the years, but bathing was banned in 1978 when a young girl died from an infection from a pathogen.  The water was tested over the next few years but it was still considered unsafe.  The Thermae Spa that we visited earlier in the afternoon has become its replacement for bathing so now the Roman Baths are a museum.

 

At the entrance, I grabbed a handheld audio guided tour, but Naomi didn’t, as she’s not a fan of them.  You could listen to the standard spiel at various locations in the museum by dialing in a number, but they also had author Bill Bryson and those were interesting to listen to.  We wandered around until almost closing time and in the end I’m glad that we went.  When in Rome…or I guess, “When you are in Rome...where Romans used to be…”.

The main bath:

Looking over towards the Bath Abbey:

The top of the entrance of one of the buildings with the Gorgon in the middle:

The Gorgon:

Many Roman coins were uncovered in some money sacks many years later:

The hot springs:

It was a nice time of day to visit it...with the approaching evening, the torches around the pool looked fantastic.

Those are film projected Romans of the day going about their business at the baths.

You can drink the water from the spring if you like...it's supposed to have healing properties.

That's my review of the taste of the water!

That evening we ventured out for a late dinner at “The Giggling Squid”, a fancy Thai chain restaurant.  It was super yummy food to finish off a beautiful day in Bath.

The Giggling Squid restaurant:

Yummy!

I'm trying to do my best "sumo" face since that's the name of the beer.

The following morning, Naomi decided to check out the spa that is in the basement of the hotel.  She came back a bit more than an hour later reporting that she thought it was better than the Thermae Spa from yesterday!  I’m glad she tried it out.

Looking down into the spa in the hotel:

The patio outside of our room:

 

We had a fancy breakfast in the hotel which was included with the room before heading out for the 10 am free walking tour that started near the Bath Abbey and the Roman Baths.  It was a sunny, but brisk morning with some northwest wind making me regret not wearing my jacket.  There was a group of at least 40 people listening to a woman in her 60s giving an overview of the tour.  We were then split up into groups of about 10 people and we were assigned a 60 something year-old man named Dave.

Naomi's avocado toast:

My eggs Benny:

Our tour guide Dave:

Dave was fantastic.  He was knowledgeable, easy to understand, and even injected some humour here and there.  You could tell that he enjoyed being a volunteer tour guide.  We were the last group to leave the abbey area, I think because Dave had so much information to tell us.  From there we worked our way through the streets as we learned some of the history of Bath.  Dave talked about Beau Nash, a colourful character in the 1700s who was the “Master of Ceremonies” of the city.  He was a gambler but a bigger socialite who loved to organize events.  There is a “Beau Street” in downtown Bath in his memory.

This is the UNESCO symbol, showing that the whole city of Bath is a historical site.

Bath has some lovely architecture which Dave explained and described to us.  There was a father and son who were key architects of Bath in the 1700s.  John Wood, the Elder, designed the Queen Square, our first stop of three main “architecture” stops.  It was a nice square park with trees and an obelisk in the middle and it was surrounded by Georgian houses along each side.  Dave explained that John would not have liked the trees in the park, as they took away from clearly seeing the lovely buildings.  He also mentioned, and then showed us, that John only cared about the look of the front of the buildings, the backside had no uniformity like the front.

The front of the Queen's Square:

And the backside...

Enjoying the tour:

Stop number 2 about the architecture was the iconic Royal Crescent, which was designed by the son, John Wood, the Younger.  It’s a 500-foot-long crescent that was originally 30 terraced houses, many of which have now been converted into multiple apartments as the houses were quite large.  It is considered to be one of the greatest examples of Georgian architecture.

The Royal Crescent:

It's huge!

And the ugly backside...

Our last stop on the architecture tour was the Circus, which was designed by John the Elder.  It’s a ring of three-storey houses with a greenspace in the middle and was built between 1754 and 1769.  Dave pointed out how each storey has a different type of column (Ionic was one of them…forget the others).  Probably the most notable resident was William Pitt, prime minister of England in the 1760s.

The different columns:

The view from above...what impressive big trees!

We wandered through some shopping streets on our way back towards the abbey.  Our last stop on the tour was the Pulteney Bridge on the River Avon (one of something like seven rivers named Avon in England as Avon means river in Welsh)…so it’s the River River.  The bridge is special in that it has shops on both sides of the entire span of it.

New Bond Street...that's my attempted James Bond pose.

The River Avon.

The Pulteney Bridge with the shops.

This is looking across the bridge...with shops on either side, you'd have no idea that you were crossing a river!

Until you looked through a window of a shop.

It was a good tour with a great guide…thanks Dave.

While Naomi was shopping for gifts for family back home, I had to try on this hat...I think it instantly makes me look 8-10 years older!

Our train back to Weymouth was at 2:30 so we had just enough time for Naomi to do a bit of shopping and for us to grab some lunch at a brewpub called BrewDog.

Naomi and I both agreed, Bath was definitely worth soaking in…  😉

 

Back In Jolly Ol’ England

February 11^th-14^th, 2024 

It was a two-hour flight from Prague to London.  By chance, Naomi and I, who had booked our tickets separately, ended up sitting in the aisle seats of the same row which was pretty fortuitous.

It was 9 in the morning and Naomi was shocked when we saw some people drinking beer in the airport.  I mentioned that I could have one.  When she found out that they had the popular Czech mulled wine (warm wine), she changed her tune and we sat down for a cheeky one.

I was trying out "Jec-Man"!

Knitting on the flight...

Hmm...clear tape holding the plane together.  After the recent news story of a door flying off of a commercial flight...this didn't look good.

After a bit of a wait for our luggage, we opted to take the Heathrow Express Train, which turned out to be a bit of a mistake.  I was shocked that it was 25 pounds each, for a 20-minute train ride!  I had taken it before, but it was one leg of a train journey from Weymouth to London back in October.  That ticket was $55 CAD which is about 31 pounds and that was a three-and-a-half-hour trip!  Naomi was probably getting sick of my whining about the price but as we quickly arrived in Paddington station, she also thought it was a rip-off.  We took the tube a few stations to Oxford Circus and then had a 3-4 block walk to our hotel, the Treehouse.

The entrance to the hotel:

The hotel was located next door to BBC’s studios, and it was a lovely place (well done Naomi on booking it).  Strangely, even though there was someone greeting us on the ground floor, we had to go to the top floor (17 or 18 storeys up) to check-in.  Our room was a few floors down from the top and it had a great view of London as well as the constant procession of jets on approach to Heathrow, but they we could not hear them in the room.  I enjoyed checking an app to see where the plane was coming from.

Part of the view out of the front door of the hotel:

It's the Beee-Beee-Seee...

Our room:

This was the view from the shower.  Interestingly, the person in the bedroom could open or close the curtains, so they could decide if they wanted a show or not.

Looking back towards the bathroom:

Awesome spot to hang out and enjoy the view.

The room came complete with a Paddington Bear.

Paddington

We ventured out to a find a late lunch.  The first pub we entered was packed, slightly surprising for a Sunday afternoon, and there was at least a half hour wait for a table, so we decided to try another nearby establishment.  It was so empty that we questioned whether they were open…crazy in that the pubs were less than two blocks apart.  The place seemed nice, but you couldn’t help but think that something’s got to be wrong with it since there was hardly anyone there.  However, it turned out to be lovely.  We sat by a fireplace with an actual fire burning and had some excellent fish and chips.

Interesting roses in the grocery store on the way back to the hotel:

The views from our room:

That evening we enjoyed dinner in the hotel’s Mexican restaurant on the top floor with Naomi’s cousin Orit and her husband Steven.  Steven grew up in north London and they met when they were around twenty years old, and Orit was visiting England from Israel.  They have been married for twenty years and have three kids.  Steven took care of ordering a variety of appys and entrees and the food was delicious.  It was a very fun evening.

Naomi and I grabbed a train to Weymouth the next day.  It was a lovely sunny day, albeit not too warm.  We were picked up at the train station by my cousin’s husband Charles who took us back to my aunt’s place.  Schools were on a mid-term break so the daughters of both of my cousins were on holidays.  We were greeted by the girls at the house and Annabel had even made a welcome sign for Naomi in Hebrew!

Our lunch on the train:

Naomi's welcome sign:

Since it was sunny and the forecast for the next few days looked rainy, I convinced everyone to go for a late afternoon walk.  We ambled through the lovely neighbourhood of Sutton Poyntz, where my aunt lives, with its old and quaint English homes along with a small pond and creek.  We walked along the side of a field before popping into a small, forested area where the girls had fun on some homemade swings over a little creek.  Inevitably the younger ones got a bit wet.

My cousin Gemma's dog Nala, a Labradoodle.

Pippa on the big swing:

Rose on the "trapeze" swing:

Now Annabel's turn:

Go Pops!

Crazy Rose:

Amelie in her favorite sweater, err...sorry, jumper.

A gorgeous sunset:

Cleaning their wellies in the creek, I have to admit that I did it too.

The following afternoon, once the rain had subsided, we walked down to the beach with the dogs, Rico and Nala, my cousins Sid and Gemma’s dogs respectively.  It was quite windy and a bit chilly, so I was impressed that there was a guy in his late 60s (at least) having fun with his old school windsurfer.  Rico’s energy was impressive.  He’s a spaniel and his tail just never stops.  In fact, sometimes it’s going so fast back and forth, you’d almost think that his backend would start lifting off of the ground!  He loves to chase birds and he ran almost all the way up the 100’ high hill beside the beach in hot pursuit.

Bowleaze Cove:

The dogs running on the beach:

Naomi finished knitting a scarf she gave me!

The dogs with the granny.  Note the protective covering on the couch, much needed with these canines, especially Rico.

They were tuckered out...

The rain was even worse the following day but Gemma had it sorted, she got everyone tickets to go and see a one-hour live show called “Rude Science”.  It billed itself as “The naughtiest, funniest, most revolting science show in the world!” and promised enormous bottoms, fart machines, snot cocktails, vast whoopee cushions, urine-powered fireworks and vomiting mannequins!  How could we not go?!?

The last time that Naomi was in Weymouth, we saw a pantomime in the same theatre, and were almost sitting in the same seats.  It was pretty busy with kids and parents, not surprising since it was a rainy afternoon during half-term with all of the young kids home from school.

I think all of the adults in our group were happily surprised by how entertaining and educational the show actually was.  It centered around fascinating, yet sometimes not talked about, bodily science.  So yes, there were simulated farts, but educational ones.  One of the highlights was this short, stubby, cannon looking contraption that shot out huge smoke rings, perhaps 3 feet in diameter, which stayed intact all the way up and past us on the upper balcony!

We also got a good giggle, especially the girls, when the host said something to the effect "You shouldn't be embarrassed about farting, everyone does it, even Granny and Uncle Dave!".

A sampling of the show:

One of the incredible smoke rings:

It was a fun three days with a full house at my aunt’s place.  Naomi and I decided that an overnight trip to Bath, a city she’s never visited before, was next on the agenda.