Glad to see that we can now view the rates for our reviews. Maybe next time Ciao should test the new...
Glad to see that we can now view the rates for our reviews. Maybe next time Ciao should test the new system before installing it?
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When we took our amazing journey on The Orient Express, a tour of Bath was part of the deal and what a lovely city it is. It has something to interest everyone from Roman Ruins to excellent shopping malls, together with museums and an abbey.
The Roman Baths are a must see. Built around a hot spring which still produces water at 46.5 degrees centigrade, the original Roman building was about 20 feet below the level of the pavement today and has been excavated to reveal a wealth of architecture.
The principal feature is the Great Bath which is now open to the elements but which was roofed in Roman times. It is 70 feet long by 30 feet wide and 5 feet deep and is still fed from the spring via Roman plumbing. The original lead lining of the bath remains intact. The statues around
the edge of the bath were added in the nineteenth century. There are many rooms to visit showing the various stages of bathing from saunas with underfloor heating to plunge pools. There are displays of archaeological findings discovered during the excavations including the carved head of Minerva and the Gorgon’s head.
When I went to the Roman Baths I only expected to see little bits of excavations with maybe a few artefacts, but I was amazed at how much there is to see and how well preserved it all is.
Bath Abbey is a building in the Perpendicular Gothic style with a 162-foot high tower. Each of the two west front turrets is decorated with carvings of angels ascending and descending to and from heaven by means of a ladder. There are so many windows in the Abbey that it is know locally as the lantern, because of it’s appearance from the surrounding hills during the evening service, when it is dark and all the lights in the Abbey are switched on.
There are many museums in Bath including the Museum of Costume, which is housed in the Assembly Rooms. This was the one that we visited as part of our tour of Bath. It traces fashion and dress from the Tudor times right up to modern day. Mind you its a bit strange seeing an outfit in a museum that you actually wore yourself! Other museums include the Postal Museum, the Book Museum, the Building of Bath Museum, the Holbourne Museum and the VictoriaArt Gallery and Museum. I won’t say anything about these museums here as we did not have the free time to be able to go in any of them, but we hope to put this right when we revisit Bath.
The architecture of Bath is Georgian splendour at it’s best and nowhere more so than The Crescent. It was built by John Wood the Younger in the 1770’s and comprises a sweep of 30 houses fronted by 114 massive Ionic columns. No 1 is now a World Heritage Building and has been restored and furnished in late 18th century style with the ‘lived in ‘ feeling of sewing put down and letters left unfinished. There is background music of the period and a kitchen museum of brass and pewter in the basement.
The Pultney Bridge over the River Avon was designed by Robert Adam in 1771 and named after William Pultney, the first Earl of Bath It is lined with shops having been inspired by the famous Ponte Vecchio in Florence. The view of the weir just downstream of the bridge is breathtaking.
Sally Lunn’s house is the oldest house in Bath dating from 1482. The famous buns are still produced here to sally Lunn’s original 1680’s recipe. In the cellar there is a kitchen museum and you can see traces of the Roman, Saxon and mediaeval foundations of the house.
Bath also has some lovely parks and gardens including the Sydney Gardens, which is laid out as Bath’s equivalent of the Vauxhall gardens in London, described at the time as ‘the most spacious and beautiful Public Garden in the kingdom’. Jane Austen lived in Sydney Place on the south side of the gardens, with her parents, in her youth.
There is a good shopping centre although we didn’t have time for a good look around the shops as we were only there for a short visit and we decided that we would rather see the historic sights instead.
I would like to visit Bath again soon so that I can spend some quality time there having a really good look round.
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May 11th, 2001
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