Waking with the sparrows we tubed to Paddington station to catch the First Western to Bath. We are still having trouble working out why you get 9 train tickets when you are going to one destination and back again….but that’s England.
We arrived to a showery, overcast and cold day but we were prepared, especially Hamish with his triple branded North Face gear! We left our bags at the charming and a little kitsch Redcar Hotel (think Fawlty Towers run by Eastern Europeans) and started exploring.
Hunger drove us to the Sally Lunn Tea House believed to have started in 1680 by Frenchwoman Sally Lunn who invented the Sally Lunn bun. We both had an idea about what a Sally Lunn cake is from back home however we were totally wrong when our order was brought out. It was MASSIVE! But delicious, especially the cinnamon butter topped bun.
Nicely full, we headed to the Bath Abbey. The cathedral is massive with really impressive stained glass windows. The Abbey was originally built in the 7th century, and has had been rebuilt numerous times on the location since then. The Abbey can fit up to 1,200 people, and there are TV screens everywhere so people can actually see the service.
The Abbey is supposedly also a monument to several ‘famous’ people (Beau Nash, Admiral Arthur Phillip and Isaac Pitman) but we didn’t recognise any of them.
We also managed to ninja into the Abbey by a side entrance by chance, which meant we didn’t have to pay. But we made a donation and lit a candle and said a prayer otherwise that would be super bad karma.
Handily the entrance to the Roman Baths is about 4 metres from the Abbey, so that was the next stop. We were both quite impressed with the size of the Baths complex and the work that had been put into making it into an interactive learning experience.
There were a huge amount of people there which was a drawback, but the audio guide was good - Bill Bryson narrated the commentary which was cool.
It was pretty incredible to be in the Baths that were so important to such a large number of people so many years ago. The history of the Baths is a combination of Celtic and Roman, but they both identified the god of the spring waters, Sulis for the Celts and Minerva for the Romans.
For lunch we consulted Lou’s amazing itinerary and went to a cute little restaurant called The Hole in the Wall, where we had some really nice food and wine.
The rain failed to dampen our adventurous spirits and we went for a brisk walk up to the Circus and the Royal Crescent, this is basically where the rich people live. There were designed in 1767 by John Wood and are meant to be some of the best examples of Georgian architecture. Our walking trip then took us to the Botanical Gardens which were very nice.
Keeping on the garden theme, we headed back towards the River Avon and went to the Parade Gardens which were quite incredible. Who knew that Bath was such an award winning town in the gardens category! The lion made out of vegetation followed on the theme of 100 Lion sculptures being placed around the city.
We then headed back to Redcar and checked in to our hotel and rested our weary feet.
Dinner rolled around and we decided to try on the recommended Thai restaurants in the city centre, which was really great. We had to finish by 8pm though as we were booked in for the ‘Bizzare Bath Walking Tour’. This was basically a comedian who led this tour around Bath and did little skits and things, was very funny and well worth it.
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| Bath Abbey at night |
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| Parade Gardens at night |
The next day we awoke to better weather and some crazy/awesome news!! David (Hamish's best mate) proposed to Donna who naturally said um...yes. Hamish was in shock and couldnt believe his best mate is soon to be married. We then headed to the lounge to sample the continental breakfast. This was different. Basically you went into the dining room and there was the cereals and juices etc laid out, and a weird looking waiter standing there who asked if you wanted toast, and we said yes, and watched as he opened a door to a cupboard where 2 toasters were sitting.
Very bizarre.
Then we set off to the Thermae spa baths, a complex built in 2006 where we paid for 2 hours worth of soaking in mineral water. The roof top pool provided a great view of the city, but we felt that the water could have been hotter and you paid too much for what you got but at least it didn’t smell of Rotorua.
We left starving, so grabbed a bite to eat at a café before assembling at the start of our next tour - to Stonehenge.
The Scarper Tour bus took us on the hour long journey to Stonehenge, it was beautiful countryside, with really old farmhouses and little villages on the way. The countryside reminded us of home a bit. We saw the famous white horse that is carved into the hillside (as the weather had cleared up by then), that was pretty cool.
There were so many people at Stonehenge, but luckily as we were on a tour we got to miss the queues. Its fair to say that we were quite indifferent about Stonehenge itself, it was much smaller than we thought it would be, and to be honest its just a bunch of rocks that are over 2000 years old. But we saw it and have ticked that box!
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| Hamish is pretty strong... |
So our weekend jaunt in Bath was drawing to a close, the only downside of the weekend was the train home running about 45 mins late which was super annoying.
But overall, we really enjoyed it and think it was our favourite place in England so far.
Highlight 1: The city – beautiful Georgian buildings all in stone made this a very pretty city.
Highlight 2: Bizarre Bath. Very funny and worth the £8 each.
Lowlight: The weather on Saturday…but hey we are living in England!
Interest fact 1: Back in the day tourists were able to hire hammers from the local blacksmith to chip of personal souvenirs from the stones at Stonehenge.
Interesting fact 2: Lord Nelson called Bath home for some of this life.
Interesting fact 3: There is a pub in Bath called Sam Wellers! Didn't score us a free drink though.
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