Bath

Bridge in Bath - nighttime

We spent a weekend in Bath recently.  Where I first experienced First Great Western's wonderful service first hand.  That train company is a total joke.  First of all it was delayed (some sort of fire on their train - very encouraging), then when one finally did turn up, everyone RAN to get on the train.  They must have been long-time First Great Western customers, since we took our time, thinking that because we had reserved our seats there would be no worries.  Oh how naive we were.  People literally couldn't get onto the carriages they were that full, I've never seen that before on one of these inter-city trains.

There was absolutely no chance of us getting anywhere near our seats, we had to fit in a carriage about 3 carriages away.  So instead it was standing all the way, joy.  I have to say thank goodness the tender process for the Western mainlines fell through, since by some miracle First Great Western had been awarded them.  Oh the injustice.

The Roman Baths

The Baths and the cathedral

On this completely packed train, of 8 carriages, 3 of them were first class, so you can't go in them - and they were totally empty.  Why would you not have more standard class trains?  How do your trains catch on fire? Do you think they run on petrol.

Sadly it's not just me that has a deep and abiding hatred of FGW, there are a number of amusing blogs detailing the long and painful problems.  The two blogs that I found are both no longer being updated.  Not because FGW somehow figured out that to run a successful train company your trains need to be on time and sufficiently frequent for the demand.  No, they are no longer being updated because the two authors could no longer take the commute and moved somewhere else so they wouldn't be subjected to FGW.  Now that is impressive.  Perhaps this is all a secret ploy for the government to reap more stamp duty, keep awarding FGW the train lines, and watch the cash roll in.

You know what would fix this?  Not freaking privatising your train system.  Because now what you have is a completely unaccountable private company, in a monopoly situation, who not only constantly screw you over, but make you pay for that pleasure.  And there's nothing you can do.  It's not like you can catch a different train to Bath, there's only one line, and only one train company servicing it.  Sigh.

An old Roman drain in the baths

The roof of the cathedral

Anyway enough ranting about FGW (I could go on, how we were packed in like animals, but I won't).

So we arrive in Bath, slightly later than intended, but never mind.  We had a great 2 days in Bath, it's such a pretty city.  I wasn't expecting the colour and the architecture to be so consistent throughout the city.  We were staying over the Bath version of the Ponte Vecchio, though there are less jewellery stores and they actually have an outlet of the Hampstead Bazaar, or as I call it the Hampstead Bizarre.  It's this really strange clothing store for older, wealthy women, that started in our suburb in London, but has now branched out England-wide.  Currently they have a signed photo of Judi Dench in the window.  The street we were staying in was this incredibly wide avenue, with the same Georgian houses all the way along.  It was very grand.

The main highlight of Bath is always going to be the Roman Baths, I was surprised with just how good they were.  We went in right behind a massive tour group, so we were thinking, hmmm this is going to suck, following 40 people around.  But they have put so much thought into the design.  The first part is all outdoors, so everyone can really space out, then once everyone has separated sufficiently they send you into a few smaller galleries.  By that stage you aren't surrounded by a massive tour group.  Why don't all major tourist sites put the same thought into the visitor experience?

View over Bath - lovely honey-coloured buildings

A swam covered in insects

The history of the place is quite amazing, how old the Baths are, and how they were completely lost for centuries, you wonder how that happens.  They have new baths there, set on different thermal springs.  You can also drink some of the water for 50p.  You walk into their lovely tea room - which is very swish - and you can enjoy the surroundings whilst you drink a little mouthful from your plastic cup.  I wouldn't recommend it though, the water is disgusting.

You can certainly spend at least a few hours wandering around the baths - the audio guide is really worth it as well.  They seem to have at least 3 tours programmed on the guide, which seems a slightly excessive number of tours.

St Bartholomew by Damien Hirst in the Cathedral - carrying his own skin

Following the Baths we popped into the Cathedral - being right next door you kind of had to.  Highlights were definitely the lovely roof.  I've never seen one like that with the fans.  To be precise it's actually an Abbey, which I think means that it was part of a monastery, rather than a purely catholic church.  But then after the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII it fell into disrepair, until Elizabeth fixed it up again.  It is a very grand building. Whilst we were there a modern art exhibit was on inside the church, which was a more unusual way to use the space out of everything I have seen in churches.  Whilst I was admiring the freaky Damien Hirst statue of St Bartholomew the priest of the church came up and started explaining it to me, or rather why they had decided to exhibit these pieces.  I was a bit too shocked to say anything.  I've never spoken to a priest before.

The royal crescent

On the other side of the alter was, if possible, an even more freaky piece.  It was a taxidermy swan in full glide, but all over it were these little taxidermy insects, spiders and ants, they are the little black dots you can see in the photo.

Nice spot for a rugby game

We also did a walking tour - always recommended.  We learnt that Bath is a world heritage site not only for the Roman Baths, but also for the Georgian architecture of the town and the way the town is built amongst the surrounding hills.  There was also a lot of Jane Austen.

Bath is also a massive rugby town, which I didn't quite appreciate, but there was a rugby game on the weekend we visited.  And the stadium was packed, you could hear the roar throughout the town.  They don't actually have a permanent stadium anywhere in the town, it's just the grandstands set up for the season, which means the games are all literally just across the river from the main city centre, so they are very easy to get to.

Regiment forming up

Of course you can't visit Bath and not be aware of Jane Austen.  There is a Jane Austen museum there, which we visited, where you get a 20 minute talk about Jane from one of the workers before you can look at their stuff.  You got the feeling they liked Jane Austen a little too much.  And you wonder if they had moved in Jane's social circles whether she would have liked them.  It has inspired me to read Persuasion and Northanger Abbey though, since both of those were apparently set in Bath for at least some of the story.

A spot of shooting

We were also lucky enough to visit on World Heritage Day, so you would think, Bath, being a World Heritage site, that it would sort of go a bit overboard on the day.  They did have some demonstrations, but not quite as large as what I would have imagined.  There was a regiment in all their gear and they would every now and again form up and shoot some rounds in front of the Royal Crescent.  You wonder how they decide the hierarchy in these strange reenactment societies.  Is it the person with the most money, who can therefore afford to buy the best uniform, or is it the person most skilled at loading their rifles?

Bath is definitely worth a visit, and if you have the time and/or puff a walk up one of the surrounding hills gives a really great view.  You would think that since the views are one of the World Heritage-y things about the town that there would be a designated walking path up to the best viewing point.  We had to walk through a housing estate to get to what was meant to be the best view.  Which just felt slightly odd.

The leaves are bursting forth