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…  😉