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Published: March 3rd 2018
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Yet again, our choice was Discover Dorset tours to explore Bath. Their walking tours are good and their tours start from Bournemouth.
Bath is famous for its
Roman Baths – the hot water spring baths.
We were picked up by the Discover Dorset tour mini bus at the Bournemouth station. There were already other tourists in the bus from different countries. We then headed off towards Bath. Arriving in Bath, we walked straight towards
The Royal Crescent. It gets its name because of its shape. A perfect crescent with windows on its walls – a great symmetrical architecture, I must say! I wondered what those windows and doors on its wall were. Our Discover Dorset walking tour guide, Jim, told the history of the crescent. It is a row of 30 terraced houses !
After standing there admiring the architectural beauty of the Crescent, we then walked towards the
Circus. Circus is about 500 mts from the Crescent. It is again a row of houses but in a circular shape i.e. four crescents together forming one big circle. Jim told us about the history of Circus.
Our next stop was the
Jane Austen Centre – a small
museum dedicated to Jane Austen, the celebrated author of Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice. We then crossed John street, Quiet street, Wood street and Queen street before reaching
Bath Abbey. The Abbey with its huge windows adorning its walls stood majestically at the junction.
We also walked into the local Bath market area before exiting on the other end to reach
Pulteny bridge. This bridge is built on River Avon. On the other side was the
Parade gardens. The most exciting part of the trip was to come next –
The Roman Baths.
We arrived at the Roman Bath complex. The complex had a Roman architecture flavour to it with pillars and domes adorning the building. Outside the complex, was a group performing a play about the Roman empire. We bought tickets to enter the complex and were waiting in the waiting hall to be let in. The ceiling of the dome in the waiting hall was decorated with carvings of flowers and other designs. We had also hired audio guides to help us understand the history behind the ancient Baths. After some waiting time, we were let in and we walked through the hallway that
opened to the King’s Bath – a hot water spring pool in the centre of a room open to the sky. It was rectangular in size with pillars on all four sides of the pool. We walked to the first floor to get an aerial view of the pool. The King’s Bath was supposed to be built in the 12
th century A.D. The hot water in the spring rises at a rate of 1,170,000 litres each day! What an interesting fact that is! There was also a museum inside the complex which had models of Baths in Roman times, remains of sculptures from Roman times, Bath areas etc. There was also a portion of the complex that was named ‘East Baths’. It had many smaller pools for the women in those times.
We later returned to the pick up point and once all the fellow travellers had arrived, we started from Bath towards Bournemouth. It was quite an interesting day learning about the Baths.
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