Day 7: Bath

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A nice early start today we departed for Bath planning to camp at a site some 5 miles away. We headed into Bath and on the advice from some other campers we met looked for a Park and Ride as taking the camper into Bath may have been tricky. Well no park and Ride was to be found on our route (we found out later that the way we came in was the only road NOT to have a park and Ride) and we ended up in downtown Bath and into a complete nightmare, no parking, not even somewhere to move to the side of the road to gather your thoughts and plan a move, take this advice, DO NOT DRIVE INTO BATH EVEN WITH A CAR, it is just not worth the stress that goes with it. We finally managed to get out of town and headed to the camp site for a strategy conference. We got pointed in the right direction to a bus and entered Bath that way. Well what a treat bath is, it is just amazing to see a town that dates back to Roman times, around 67 AD and while much of the building now left is circa 1600 to 1700 it was none the less stunning. We visited the Bath Abbey, circa 1560 and built on a Roman Church site which was in turn built on an ancient Norman temple site dating back 2500 years. We took the tour of the abbey and climbed the 212 steps to the top of the tower, that was a tough climb on all of us but what a view and the guide was great in telling us about the church and bell tower. Touring the Roman Baths, the main site in Bath was amazing, walking on stones laid 2000 years ago gives one a sense of your own mortality and just how young NZ is in the scheme of things. Leaving the baths it was a walk to the Royal Circle a semi circular building circa 1700 and a beer in one of the oldest licensed pubs in Bath, possible 500 years but no one is really certain. Just wandering the streets of Bath was for me a fantastic experience and would love more time here on another occasion. Tomorrow its off to Wales then on up to the Cotswolds, but that's another story.

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Comments

[christein]

Loved your journal
Read your complete journal and it was nice reading it. Even the pictures were good, especially the Stonehenge ones.