Ahhhh.... Bath!

A typical view of the city of Bath

My mum and dad arrived to be with Isaac and me on September 23rd. After keeping them moving most of the day, we tucked them into bed and got up early to go to Bath on Friday, the 24th of September - as they say...no rest for the weary...or the jet lagged! After riding on the train for about 3 hours, we ended up in Bath. Bath is pronounced Baa-th (pretend you are a sheep and say Bath and you have the pronunciation correct!).  Bath is one of my most favorite places to visit. The architecture is amazing as are the sites, and the British must agree with me. This city has more protected historic buildings per capita than any other town in England - so believe it or not, it is an old place. Most of the buildings are built out of creamy limestone called "Bath stone". So the picture that begins this part of my blog truly is a good representation of what you would see in the skyline of Bath.

Now Bath is incredibly old - even before the time of the Romans in the 1st century, Bath was known for its healing hot springs. The Romans came into Bath and attempted to make the city look just like Rome. And, believe it or not, as you walk through the centre of the city, you feel as though you are in Rome - now, I have never been to Rome, but my mum and dad, who have been there, said it felt and looked like Rome. Since they are reliable and honest folks, I decided I must agree with them :)

Annette and John

We rented a condo from Annette and John - they are a lovely couple. Annette is from Bath and they have both spent time in places all around England. They recently moved from Portugal to Bath and they were one of the nicest couples we met in Bath. They picked us up from the train station and got us oriented to Bath. Since mum and dad are going to Lisbon on their cruise on the way home, John also gave them information about what to do when they go to Lisbon, so it was definitely a fruitful trip. The condo was really nice - it had 2 bedrooms...

Isaac's and my bedroom

Mum and Dad's bedroom

and a cute kitchen and a living area along with a bathroom. It was just perfect for all of us!

The kitchen

The living area

But my favorite part of this condo, was the view - it was right on the canal; it was peaceful, and the view out of the back windows was beautiful.

View toward the city

View away from the city

Looking out onto the canal

It was pretty overcast while we were in Bath, but we were fortunate that it did not rain. After getting our bearings and figuring out the condo, we went up the footpath and crossed the canal into the city. Our first step was to take the free walking tour of Bath. This is a great experience for anyone who visits or lives in Bath. The tour guides are selected by the mayor of bath and they share their love of the city with you - and it is free!

Bill, the tour guide

Bill was our trusty guide and he was simply fantastic. He was a retired school headmaster and you could just tell he loved British history. He told us stories, pointed out architectural details and cracked jokes for 2 1/2 hours. We saw things and learned things that we would have otherwise missed. He told us after the Romans and Normans left Britain and the English reclaimed the territory, the 3 gentlemen who planned and built up the city basically wanted an element of surprise. All 3 gentlemen were a little crazy, but in the end, they developed a magical city full of surprises. But I am getting ahead of myself...

The Bath Abbey was considered the religious capital of Britain during the times of the Saxons. In fact, the city's influence peaked in 973 AD with King Edgar I's coronation in the abbey.

Bath Abbey

After Bath began to lose religious power, it became a city that prospered because of its wool. However, as all good cities often do, Bath becan to decline until the mid 1600's . Because of the hot springs and high water table, the town was smelly and dirty and the rich lived out in the country -which is really only up the hill a little bit. The residents of Bath were oblivious to the treasures that lay below their city.

The current abbey is about 500 years old and is one of the greatest medieval churches in Britain. Its architecture is described as Late Perpendicular Gothic. It is complete with flying buttresses which are used to keep the towers and the ceilings in place...

The arch from the tower to the roof below it is a good example of a flying buttress

Now, if you have been following my blog, you will also remember that the cathedral in Lincoln started out as Norman but ended up being Gothic and it has flying buttresses as well. The other similarity between these two glorious churches are the carvings in the stone. This church has angels that are running up and down the outside of the towers.

Angels running up and down the tower

King Henry VIII

Jesus looking down on King Henry and the people in the centre of the city

You also can clearly see the relationship between church and state. There is a statue of King Henry right above the front door of the church and above him looking down from the top of the church is Jesus. There also is a sign of iconoclasm - to the left of the door is a statue of St. Peter whose head was chopped off by iconoclasts. The iconoclasts are people who destroy religious icons typically for religious or political reasons. What happened in Britain is that it originally was a Catholic country. However, there was a great deal of conflict and Britain cut its ties with the Roman Catholic church and created its own Anglican church. The iconoclasts ran through Britain and destroyed many Catholic icons and statues during this time, and many of the statues have never been repaired.

Front door of Abbey

As we left the abbey and continued on our journey, Bill, the tour guide became quite frustrated with what we saw around the corner....

Believe it or not, Bali-wood came to Bath the same day we did - the gorgeous girl in the background must be a pretty famous Bali-wood star. They were taping a movie in Bath and they were in the space where our tour guide wanted to be. We were asked to move, but Bill told the movie guys that they were bothering him and that they could wait for us to be done before they continued to shoot their movie...it was pretty funny watching our older tour guide chew out a Bali-wood dude!

Bill pointed out the side of the Roman Bath structure - it was really cool. Bill probably explained the significance of the rough texture and holes in the stones in the building, but either I didn't hear him or I honestly just cannot remember. He told us a lot that day...I felt as though I should have been taking notes!

Street that T's into the Roman Baths

Bath is a very romantic city. The architecture moves from Roman to Gothic to Doric to Palladian to Georgian and everywhere in between. Some buildings even have 3 different levels, each with a different architectural appearance. It is pretty amazing. Bath is also built in a hillside. So as we toured the city, we continued to move up the hill and into the "country".

One thing we learned on this trip was about some interesting evolutions in the English language. About 1/2 way up on our journey Bill told us a story about a little old lady who was down in the city on a very cold day who wanted to come home to her house up on the hill. At those times, you couldn't call for a taxi because there were no cars. But they did have men who would carry you up the hill in a covered structure that had 4 poles on it. So the poor woman called for a ride home. The men came to get her and she paid them for their services. Well it was really cold and the men felt as though they should have been paid more. So about 1/2 way up the hill, they dropped the poles to the ground and stopped carrying her. They would not take her any further until she agreed to pay them more money for their efforts. This is where the phrase "being taken for a ride" comes from. Now I am not sure if this is a true story or not, but I am going to trust that it is - where else would this phrase come from?!?

Another thing we learned is that although the fronts of the buildings in Bath are gorgeous, the backs of most of the buildings are just not - take a look at the back of this building...

The ugly back side of a really pretty buidling

We also had a lesson in economics. War is really expensive, and the British have fought a lot of wars. The kings had to tax people in order to come up with the money needed to fight their wars. So they started taxing people for the number of fireplaces they had. The tax collector would come to your house, count your fireplaces, and you would be taxed accordingly. Well the people being taxed were not stupid, so they covered their windows so the tax collectors couldn't see in their houses and they started refusing to let the tax collectors come into their homes. So the tax collectors decided they had to change their tactics. They started taxing people for the number of windows they had instead. In order for windows to be considered separate windows, they had to have a minimum of about 18" between them. Now you need to look closely at the next pictures-you are going to have look "around" the scaffolding - but if you look closely, you will notice that the owner of the 2nd house did not have to pay as much in tax as the owner of the first house because the windows in the 2nd house count as 1 window, not 2...

Notice how far apart the windows are - this would count as 2 windows in this house

This house would pay less tax because the windows were closer together and only would
count as 1 window - how clever!

We also learned that wrought iron fences in England should only be black; there were some fences behind us that were painted dark green by some Italians who were new in town - not only did Bill think this was blasphemy, he also couldn't figure out how this color made it through the historical society in Bath - what a hoot!

As we continued on our journey, we looked at the back of a nice building that actually looked as nice from the front as it did from the back.

Now this building was really neat - look closely at the next picture...

If you look closely, there is a place on this building where there is gray wood - the building is not made out of stone at that point - this is a "hanging loo" (aka toilet). This building was originally built before the time of indoor plumbing, and this hanging loo was added as an improvement. The interesting thing is that the waste from this building had to be eliminated, so the builders developed a system where the waste was brought down through pipes that came out of the wall of the back of this building. I believe Bill mentioned the waste was taken down the hill. His friend who now lives there, has a great garden every year - he attributes this garden to the years of waste that came from this building!

The waste came out of the wall through the place that is now boxed in with rectangular bricks

Our tour also took us up to the Royal Crescent and the Circus. The crescent is the first Georgian "condos" that was built by the two John Woods (the older and the younger) - the older John Wood who died and was then replaced by his son is one of the 3 original crazy guys who were in charge of rebuilding Bath to its current glorious state. The crescent was built in about the 1770s.

The right side of the Royal Crescent - the 2 story end is 1 house!

More of the Royal Crescent - it is a huge building!

Part of this building now houses the Royal Crescent Hotel - one of the more expensive hotels in Bath. There is a fence in front of the Crescent that is called the "ha ha fence" - its purpose was to keep out the sheep and peasants. From the Royal Crescent, we then went to the Circus. This was not a circus like with elephants and clowns. Instead, it was a set of 3 buildings that were built by the two John Woods. The Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian decorations remind everyone that Bath with its 7 hills was meant to be "the Rome of England".

Part of the Circus

The thing I liked best about the circus was the inner circle - it had awesome old huge trees in it - the original plans did not call for trees, but at some point, the trees were planted, and now they are gorgeous!

A cool and old tree in the middle of the circus

The other cool thing about the circus is that if you yelled really loudly, you could hear your voice echo. We then meandered back down Milton street and ended up back at the Roman Baths.

Entrance to the Roman baths

When the tour was completed, we decided to go through the abbey and then the Baths. I have posted some of the pictures on my facebook page, so be sure to check those out. I will put up different pictures on the blog just to mix things up a bit. The abbey was simply beautiful. We didn't have time to go up into the towers, but I did have time to take a few pictures...

Beautiful statuary on the side of the church

The windows were spectacular...

James Montagu's memorial

And we also saw a memorial to James Montagu, the bishop of Bath and Wells from 1608-1616 and later the Bishop of Winchester. He was responsible for getting a roof placed on the church. After making our way through the church, we went on into the Roman Baths.

The baths in Bath were originally developed by the Romans. They originally called Bath "Aquae Sulis" which meant Waters of Sul - Sul was a goddess who looked a lot like Minerva. The city eventually became known as "take a bath" and then was shortened to its current name of "Bath". The Romans traveled here for the healing powers of the warm spring baths. Over time, the city was built over the baths and it wasn't until later that archeologists discovered the treasures that lay below the city. The display is out of this world and is one that I highly recommend. You can drink the bath water if you want. I did this once before and will never do it again - I am told it won't hurt you but it tastes horrible! When we walked into the baths, I was greeted by a friendly Roman-looking guy...

Friendly Roman Greeter :)

He was dressed much differently than the greeters at Walmart! Any way, I think the best way to describe the baths is to see it visually. The archeological finds are just spectacular. We truly enjoyed our time in the Roman Baths. My only regret is that we ran out of time and could not enjoy the baths as much as we had hoped. Rick Steves says you can get through this display in about 45 minutes - but we found out that there is at least 3 hours of recordings if you do the entire audio tour. So, you need more than 45 minutes and probably closer to at least a couple of hours to see them and appreciate them all.

Looking down onto the baths

Surrounding the upper observation deck of the baths are statues of a bunch of important Roman rulers (like Julius Caesar.

Tomb of an important and wealthy scribe

I thought this guy looked very intelligent...or very constipated :)

Where the spring water emptied into the baths - the water was surprisingly hot...and green!

Isaac and I thinking about jumping into the baths to warm up!

View from the window in the women's wc

After closing the baths, we continued our walk on a hunt for classic Bath buns. Although I could not convince mom and dad to go into Sally Lunn's and purchase a bun, we did walk by it...

Sally was a maiden from France who came to Bath and started baking buns. People from far and wide came to Bath to eat her buns because they were so light and airy. I finally convinced mom and dad to go there on Saturday before we left Bath, but unfortunately her restaurant did not open until 10:00 and we had to catch the train at 9:43. So I guess I'll have to go to Sally's the next time I come to Bath. Her restaurant is very historic - in fact, it is the oldest house in Bath.

Rumor has it that when Sally died, whoever purchased the house would also get her famous bun recipe until one day, someone hid the recipe in a cupboard. It was thought that the recipe was lost forever. But eventually someone found the recipe in the cupboard and now Bath is back into the bun business!

We then made our way past the Parade Gardens and the Pulteney Bridge. The bridge is similar to the Ponte Vecchio bridge in Florence. It is really cool. There are shops built in the bridge. The stores were closed when we passed by them, but I have been in the shops before. The views from the shops are simply stunning.

Parade Gardens

The river Avon and the Pultney bridge

At this point in our journey, we were ravenous. So we headed to Jamie's Italian which is run by Jamie Oliver. The views from the restaurant were incredible.

The baths and the abbey are behind us

Papa's pasta with meatballs - yum!!

Moko and Isaac's gourmet fish and chips

My lovely ravioli - WOW is all I can say!

Jamie's Italian makes all their pasta from scratch - I don't think there is one bad dish on the menu!

Racks of pasta

Kitchen and bar

We ended our evening with an after-dinner drink at the Star Pub. This is one of the more traditional English Pubs in Bath and it had excellent ale. They even served Isaac's coke on ice - what a luxury! It is important to note that the British do not normally serve their drinks on ice. Ice is hard to come by in England, so it was fun to find a place that actually had ice :)

Cheers!

What a cute bottle of Coke - and a glass of ice!

The bar at the Star Inn

Another funny British sign!

Good night, friends!

After this, we decided to call it a night. We walked back to the condo and crashed. We woke up early the next morning and left Isaac in bed as we went on a hunt for breakfast. We ordered a chocolate muffin for Isaac, a blueberry muffin for mum, and a cream-filled donut and cinnamon bun for dad. You can see the pictures of all this on my facebook page. I tried to order a chocolate éclair, but they didn't have any fresh ones, so this lady asked me if I would like this instead...

I just couldn't resist it - it was more like dessert, but when in Bath, you must eat like those in Bath - we devoured our breakfast, and John picked us up and took us back to the train station so we could move onto Blenheim Palace by way of Oxford and Woodstock.

Bath remains one of my most favorite cities to visit. I see and learn something new every time I visit there. I hope someday I can return - who knows, maybe I'll be cast in a Bali-Wood movie and be back before you know it. The flowers and sites are stupendous. I will leave you with some more beautiful sites in Bath-I think everyone needs to come here at least once - put it on your bucket list...it is always good to take a Bath :)

Baptismal font in the Abbey

Cool cake in the bakery where we bought breakfast - too bad the lady didn't offer this to us instead of an éclair!

Cheers!

What a beautiful place!

Woods' Stationery - I wonder if this family is related to the John Woods!