Tuesday, August 31, 2004
A long weekend in Bath
For the long weekend we opted for a “UK break” the reasoning being that three days spent in a foreign city cannot do it justice. The location of choice was Bath. Since Lou booked this a while ago she was not aware that it is on the itinerary for when the rest of my family come over to visit. Now I can be their personal tour guide. Also because Lou was making the decisions our accommodation was a little more up market than we are used to. She booked a B&B about 10 mins walk from the centre of town.
The first thing you notice about Bath when arriving on the train is that the buildings are not made of red brick, like everywhere else in England, but a cream coloured stone called Bath stone. As you would have guessed by the name it is from the local area. There is actually a by-law that says all buildings must be made from the stuff. A little snag is that the quantities are running low so they have changed from solid bath stone buildings to buildings built with cinder blocks and bath stone veneer.
Day 1
Our hosts strongly recommended doing the local walking tour kindly paid for by the Mayor. So in the morning we headed down to town to the starting spot. Our tour guide was a rather odd old man who had a habit of stammering regularly and appearing to lose his train of thought. He was a good source of local information and cracked a few jokes that were mildly funny.
Stonehenge
In the afternoon we had booked a trip to Stonehenge with “Mad Max” tours which began with bad jokes about Mel Gibson but the similarity to the movies ended there. Our tour guide gave us a potted history of the area that sometimes overlapped and contradicted what we were told by our guide earlier. I guess you can’t expect rigorous scholarly accuracy on a free guided walk or on a tour bus.
Stonehenge was not as busy as I had feared, and very well managed. We finally put our “family” membership of the New Zealand Historic places trust to use (which expires early next month) to get free entry.
We received audio guides with entry which can be a mixed blessing. On the one hand they provide an interesting, detailed and hopefully more accurate history of the attraction. However they can be very corny and put you off what you are trying to appreciate (see our entry on Gaudi’s Passeig de Garcia post on Thursday, April 08, 2004) The Stonehenge guide was better than most and helped you appreciate what is otherwise a strange pile of large stones. The commentary is very cagey about making assumptions always saying “we believe …” it seems to me that the most obvious explanation of its purpose was to celebrate the solstice, especially the summer one. I cannot say it was an awe inspiring experience, there were simply too many people with video and still cameras around snapping away to really appreciate it.
Food poisoning
On returning to Bath I suddenly had an overwhelming need to find a toilet. It turns out eating the seafood sandwich the previous evening, that I bought at the station in London, was not a good idea. I had food poisoning. We had a simple pasta meal and an early night.
Day 2
Georgian Bath
Bath was a sleepy little town after the Romans left England (more on that below). It only became popular in Georgian times when royalty chose it as a retreat and so all their entourage and the “social elite” followed. Now the old city mainly consists of Georgian architecture which secured its status as a world heritage site. Two impressive examples are the Circus, a circle of houses which enclose a small green and is dissected by three roads at 120 degrees. The second is the Royal Crescent, a half ellipse of houses. Both are very near to each other. We visited Number 1 Royal Crescent, a museum redecorated as it would have been when first built in the 18th century.
We also looked around the Assembly rooms, a large building used for evening entertainment for aristocratic visitors to Bath in its heyday.
This was enough for me, I went back the B&B (conveniently next door to the Assembly rooms) and relaxed while Lou went shopping.
Day 3
Roman Baths
You can’t come to Bath without visiting the Roman Baths. These were originally built in the 1st century AD when Britain was part of the Empire. The Romans loved to bathe and, due to the natural hot springs at Bath, they built a large spa complex including a bathing pond with a temple next door so they could pray to the gods that provided the healing power of the spring. To their credit their plumbing is still working to this day even thought the bathes were buried and forgotten for centuries. The museum is very well designed with many interesting facts about the area at the time of the Romans, their culture, and what the baths would have looked like in all their glory.
The first thing you notice about Bath when arriving on the train is that the buildings are not made of red brick, like everywhere else in England, but a cream coloured stone called Bath stone. As you would have guessed by the name it is from the local area. There is actually a by-law that says all buildings must be made from the stuff. A little snag is that the quantities are running low so they have changed from solid bath stone buildings to buildings built with cinder blocks and bath stone veneer.
Day 1
Our hosts strongly recommended doing the local walking tour kindly paid for by the Mayor. So in the morning we headed down to town to the starting spot. Our tour guide was a rather odd old man who had a habit of stammering regularly and appearing to lose his train of thought. He was a good source of local information and cracked a few jokes that were mildly funny.
Stonehenge
In the afternoon we had booked a trip to Stonehenge with “Mad Max” tours which began with bad jokes about Mel Gibson but the similarity to the movies ended there. Our tour guide gave us a potted history of the area that sometimes overlapped and contradicted what we were told by our guide earlier. I guess you can’t expect rigorous scholarly accuracy on a free guided walk or on a tour bus.
Stonehenge was not as busy as I had feared, and very well managed. We finally put our “family” membership of the New Zealand Historic places trust to use (which expires early next month) to get free entry.
We received audio guides with entry which can be a mixed blessing. On the one hand they provide an interesting, detailed and hopefully more accurate history of the attraction. However they can be very corny and put you off what you are trying to appreciate (see our entry on Gaudi’s Passeig de Garcia post on Thursday, April 08, 2004) The Stonehenge guide was better than most and helped you appreciate what is otherwise a strange pile of large stones. The commentary is very cagey about making assumptions always saying “we believe …” it seems to me that the most obvious explanation of its purpose was to celebrate the solstice, especially the summer one. I cannot say it was an awe inspiring experience, there were simply too many people with video and still cameras around snapping away to really appreciate it.
Food poisoning
On returning to Bath I suddenly had an overwhelming need to find a toilet. It turns out eating the seafood sandwich the previous evening, that I bought at the station in London, was not a good idea. I had food poisoning. We had a simple pasta meal and an early night.
Day 2
Georgian Bath
Bath was a sleepy little town after the Romans left England (more on that below). It only became popular in Georgian times when royalty chose it as a retreat and so all their entourage and the “social elite” followed. Now the old city mainly consists of Georgian architecture which secured its status as a world heritage site. Two impressive examples are the Circus, a circle of houses which enclose a small green and is dissected by three roads at 120 degrees. The second is the Royal Crescent, a half ellipse of houses. Both are very near to each other. We visited Number 1 Royal Crescent, a museum redecorated as it would have been when first built in the 18th century.
We also looked around the Assembly rooms, a large building used for evening entertainment for aristocratic visitors to Bath in its heyday.
This was enough for me, I went back the B&B (conveniently next door to the Assembly rooms) and relaxed while Lou went shopping.
Day 3
Roman Baths
You can’t come to Bath without visiting the Roman Baths. These were originally built in the 1st century AD when Britain was part of the Empire. The Romans loved to bathe and, due to the natural hot springs at Bath, they built a large spa complex including a bathing pond with a temple next door so they could pray to the gods that provided the healing power of the spring. To their credit their plumbing is still working to this day even thought the bathes were buried and forgotten for centuries. The museum is very well designed with many interesting facts about the area at the time of the Romans, their culture, and what the baths would have looked like in all their glory.
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