Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Bath, baths and Jane Austen

I now had to face the challenge of my first serious drive across country in the UK. Not that it was especially serious - it's only something like 80 miles, or 130km. But that's a lot further than I've driven in Australia for quite a few years, and in a country where I'm far less familiar with the countryside.

But the motorways here are impressive, though the downside is you don't get to see very much of the countryside - which was kind of annoying for me, since that was one of the reasons I'd opted for the self-driving holiday.

So, after about an hour and a half or so of driving through some quite pleasant (what I could see of it) landscape, I arrived on the outskirts of Bath. It's not a very big place, but my plan was to park in a carpark somewhere central (since I couldn't park at my hotel until the check-in time, which I think was 3.00pm) and wander round from there. I'd done my research and found one in town, so I headed there.

Note to self: never attempt to drive in Bath again. Note to others: never attempt to drive in Bath.

The streets are extremely narrow but there is (or at least was when I was there on a Friday morning) a fair amount of traffic trying to get around, which made it very slow-going on roads that were probably laid out by the pre-Roman inhabitants and not altered very much (in terms of width or curvature) since. This was way too frustrating for me, but I didn't really have any alternatives beyond looking to get out of town and back in again using public transport - and I was already pretty close to where I needed to be, so I just soldiered on until I reached the carpark. It, at least, was modern and spacious and easy to navigate.

Then it was time to wander around. I checked out the tourist information centre to find out about walking tours - that's become standard practice for me on this trip - and learned there'd be one later in the day. So, this gave me time to check out the Jane Austen museum. I don't know if I technically qualify as a hardcore Jane Austen fan; I've only read three of her books and I only like one of those: Pride & Prejudice is one of my all time favourite books, and I love it dearly, but Emma I didn't think that much of and Sense & Sensibility I couldn't even finish. But I was interested in her life, so off I went.

It was staffed by young people in period costume (some of whom had wonderful Somerset accents; I wanted to ask more questions simply to hear them talk) and was extremely informative. I took this photo because of the significance of the date - my birthday, July 18. A bit depressing, actually; so, too, the fact she was only 41.


Then it was time for the walking tour. There was quite a large group gathered, but the people involved - it's a free tour, presumably run by the city council or some similar body - had sent along three guides, so we got split up into thirds and parceled out to each.

My guide - I don't know if I heard his name - was hilarious. Very knowledgeable, of course, but hilarious. Harboured a strong dislike for pretty much every nation on the planet, including the English. At some point throughout there was distinct disparagement of the Welsh, the Scots, the French (Norman and otherwise), the Italians and the Germans. He criticised Australia's immigration policy, but he was right about that so that doesn't count. Oh, and people from Bristol (only 13 miles away from Bath); they were definitely trouble.

He was very much into architecture, and told us about three people who'd had the most influence on the design of Bath - and how all three were very flawed in one way or another. This went on for nearly three hours - it's advertised as taking two - but it was so funny and informative that I didn't mind. My feet and back weren't so happy, but that's what we have anti-inflammatories for.

Pictures!



















Yes, there are some random dog pictures in there, though they aren't very good; the first one is a Basset Hound and the second a Dachshund.

The day, of course, was not over there - but it was time for me to get my car and enjoy Bath's roads again; it didn't help that the entrance to my hotel was not, in fact, on the road they give as their address. But after a couple of laps and no small amount of swearing I managed to spot the tiny sign and went in. My room was at the top of about four flights of stairs so I decided, given I was only there for one night, to just take the stuff I needed out of my suitcase and leave the rest in the car

Back into town - but on foot this time; much easier. I went and found myself some dinner at a Thai place I came across while wandering about. Then I did some more walking about to find interesting things and found a section we hadn't covered in the tour; it looks like this:












Now it was time for the Roman Baths - they're open until 10 during summer, so I thought I'd wait until a bit later to go through since that would probably mean fewer tourists, and therefore fewer annoying, noisy children. So, in I went.

This is a truly fascinating place. Because of the natural hot springs the Romans built baths and a temple here in the first century AD, but it had been used by Celtic tribespeople before that. The Romans kept it in use for a few hundred years, gradually building more on the site. As a result there's quite a lot of archaeological material around from all of that, and there's quite a bit of it on display at the museum in the complex.

Oh, and I got an audio guide to go around with - and several of the stops had alternate narration from writer Bill Bryson, who's quite fond of the place.

Anyway, here's what it looks like.













One of the most interesting things there is the fragments in the display case - these are curses, which people used to etch onto scrap metal and throw into the springs. One of them has what they believe to be the only example ever found of an ancient Celtic language called Common Brittonic. Let's face it, when you're a word-nerd like I am, such things are very cool.

Then it was time to trudge back to the hotel, climb a lot of stairs and go to bed. Well, after the night's blogging, of course...

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