The Baths of Bath

22 February, 2014

Once upon a time (or last Saturday), in a land far far away, a girl named Christy joined her adventurous friends on a trip to Bath. Misleading though the city name may be, I’m not talking about a giant city inside of a bath tub. Though I must admit, that would be awesome.

But wipe away those disappointed tears because there will be baths in this tale. Swimming pool sized baths used by old Roman guys, no less.

Our journey began at the Bath Abbey, preferable for its lack of admission fee – if you don’t count the aggressive donation collector – and it certainly did not disappoint. The inside was absolutely gorgeous and I again found myself wondering what kind of withdrawal symptoms I’ll have when I come back home to find I’ve been taking all the beautiful buildings for granted.

We left the abbey to fuel up and explore the city a little more. Recognize the picture below, anyone? I somehow always find the filming locations whenever they exist to be found, but I swear this time it was a total accident! (Other times, I must admit, it was the furthest thing from an accident).

"I'll escape now from that world, from the world of Jean Valjean.
There is nowhere I can turn, there is no way to go on!!!"

After our exploration, we returned to the Roman Baths. Let me just say, after this trip, I think I would have quite liked being a Roman. Apparently the ancient Romans used bath houses as we use our golf courses; to relax, enjoy some recreational fun and do business.

From what I could gather, this is the life of a Bathian Roman:

•  Wake up
• Spend hours relaxing and doing business in the public, natural hot spring baths - where they swam naked and coed. (scandelousss!)
• Have a supposedly more productive business day after enjoying a fresh and relaxing start in the morning.
• Go back to the baths.
• Go home to sleep and do it all over again!

Like I said, not too shabby of an existence, if you ask me!

After we finished longing for the days of the Romans, we decided to do some more exploration by foot. This turned out to be a very good idea as we soon stumbled upon the Jane Austin Centre which was well worth a visit. Plus, we got to meet Mr. Bingley!!! (Or at least a random publicity guy outside, dressed up as Mr. Bingley… I say it counts!)

After a few wrong turns, we finally found the Royal Crescent. Not only was this a good view, but it was adjacent to a lovely looking park. Unfortunately, it was a gated park for residents only. So we basically just stood at the gate and gazed longingly at the rolling hills and cheerful people running and playing in slow motion. The mental picture in your head is correct, we felt very much like we were at the zoo, observing English people in their natural habitat. It was a rather awkward experience for us, and I would assume a much more awkward experience for them. But we ignored those minor details and proceeded to stand there for literal hours while we talked. Absolutely nothing weird about that. Eventually we left - I am sure to the mass relief of everyone trying to enjoy their Saturday at the park.

The Royal Crescent
aka where I completely failed at fitting this awesome but
extremely long and curvy building into one good picture.

At this point I found myself going into an establishment - for the second time in a few days - with the sole intention of getting my afternoon tea… It’s happening. I’m turning into an English person.

Random aside: Speaking of tea and English-ness, at the pub quiz this week (which brings up the whole other issue that I regularly go to pub quizzes… they’re turning me into one of them!) one of our friends said that he wished there was such thing as a portable kettle hoister so that you could just have your kettle attached to your belt and always have tea ready wherever you go. I have to say, amused as I was, I quite like the idea.

When we had finished our tea, I can safely say we were all feeling very relaxed and were happy to make our way back to the bus stop. On our way back, we saw another few of these beauties. 

Because us poor Americans would look the wrong way and be run over otherwise. I commend those who work tirelessly to prevent groups like us from being the next sad cover story for the dangers of tourism. I take my hat off to you, kind street painting people! (Or I would... if I was wearing a hat. Check back in a few months and I'm sure I will have progressed from afternoon tea and pub quizzes to a full on bowler hat. Maybe, just maybe...)

Another Random Aside (sorry!): I apologize for the steadily decreasing number of pictures (mostly, I mean Facebook). My poor hands get cold when they have to leave the sanctuary of my warm pockets for too long and, though my tired eyes are happy when there are less than a million pictures to sift through at the end of the day, I know thorough documentation is appreciated. I promise to try and talk my hands out of their cave for a little longer next time.