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Published: August 6th 2007
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Royal Crescent
The most prestigious address in Bath, back in the day the wealthy socialites would rent these houses by the season. I know, I know, how original - I'm pretty sure everyone that's ever been to Bath has titled their blogs the same way!
Ok so another long weekend in London (yeah it appears we never work) and another chance to hit the road and see some new places. With Barbs (aka Mother Hinds) down holidaying in London, it was her advice we went for our holiday location of choice... Bath!
After work on Firday the 3 of us set off for the historic town of Bath for 3 days of sight seeing and (unfortunately) pretty ordinary weather. We arrived late and immediately hit the hay in preparation for the big day ahead.
For those of you (like us) who knew nothing much about Bath before our arrival - here's a little history for you.....
The city is regarded as an architectural gem with elegant Georgian terraces, grand facades and honey coloured buildings lining its streets. The world heritage city is home to the only hot springs in the country, roman baths and has an air of exclusivity that made it the fashionable haunt of 18th century English society. For anyone who has read any Jane Austen books
(um not me but anyway) she lived here and wrote about the place too.
Word on the street is that the town was founded some 2800 years ago by some king ( and his herd of pigs) with a funky skin condition who claimed that the hot springs and mud cured him (and his pigs) of leprosy. The romans had their finger on the pulse and established the town around the springs, they built massive bath complexes and a temple to the goddess Sulis-Minerva. Much later in the 18th century a guy called Beau Nash (the town's Master of Ceremonies, or events coordinator as we'd know it) spun some magic and made Bath the centre of fashionable society.
Bath stayed this way for quite a while until some other king (I'm all about the details obviously) decided it was sea water that was the key, not these hot springs and up and shifted to the coast. And after that Bath was no longer THE place to be. Lucky for us all the cool stuff remains in Bath and makes it a great place to explore!!
To orientate ourselves we caught one of the open top double decker
Pulteney Bridge and the River Avon
One of only 4 bridges in the world with shops across the full span on both sides. bus tours that took us on a tour of the city (and surrounds) and gave us a quick run down of the history we were looking at. Again, like so many places we visit, the photos sort of tell the story and give you a good look at what the city has to offer.
One of the highlights of the trip (and thankfully indoors given the poor weather) was a visit to the original Roman Baths. The ruins were rediscovered in the late 19th century and have been fixed up for all of us to explore. It was incredible to see and I just find it so amazing that these guys had spas and saunas and what not so early on. Talk about being on to a good thing! We even got a chance to drink some of the famous water and by all accounts - it tasted AWFUL! Hot, metalic and not at all refreshing after an hour of being a hardcore tourist. But anyway...
Another highlight was Stonehenge. Everyone had warned us that this was massively overrated, so Adam and I had pretty low expectations. But considering it's just on the side of a massive highway
in some farmers paddock, it was pretty cool. What was even cooler was the fact that during the 40 minute tour we were constantly reminded that nobody has figured out why its even here. Me personally, I'd lie and tell some elaborate story, but no, not the English, they don't know and that's that.
What is kind of random and did make it all the more interesting was the fact that most of the rocks that make up the henge come from Wales (and only there) and it means that someone had to cart all this massive rocks hundreds of miles. Which makes you wonder just why these rocks were so important.
Its also agreed that it was used as a bit of a calendar as every month of the year the sun shines through a different opening in the structure. Pretty bloody impressive as far as I'm concerned.
The farming area around where Stonehenge is located is also well known for crop circles. We were shown photos of crop circles that have appeared over the last decade or so (some of them were so amazing). Once again this is a phenomenon that noone can explain, with
many theories circulating. I think of it as a bit of a coincidence that not far from where all this happens is a big army base. Hmmm.
Having visited the two key tourist draw cards of the region (Roman Baths and Stonehenge), much of remaining time in Bath was exploring the rest of the city and it's scenic sights such as the Botanical Gardens, the Circus (no not the animal kind but a circular terrace which unfortunately you can't do justice in a photo unless from an aerial standpoint), the Royal Crescent, Pulteney Bridge, and Bath Abbey. Once again the photos probably best portray the sights.
One little fact which we did find out was that a lot of famous people have houses in and around Bath - including Johnny Depp, Nicholas Cage, Peter Gabriel, Madonna, and Sting. But to no avail we didn't spot anyone.
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Fantastic
Wow Ange, Bath looks fantastic and Stonehenge I can't wait to see it.