Bath: Journey to Bath, and More Sightseeing

view from the famous pier in Brighton

We left for Bath on Friday morning (Nov 4th), first going to nearby Brighton, where some people from our group had a morning field study. After walking around Brighton for a while to kill some time, we finally boarded our train to Bath.

That train actually only went to London Victoria station; we then took the tube in London to get to London Paddington station, where our connecting train departed from. In total, I think it took about 4 hours to get there. We arrived and it was already dark, so we just found our hostel, went for dinner (at a great and surprisingly cheap restaurant called Westgate) and then walked around central Bath.

The next day, much of the day was spent at Bath Abbey and the Roman Baths, both of which I've already posted about. However, before those we started off the day at the Pump Room Restaurant:

Bath Abbey in the background

The Pump Room is apparently a very famous restaurant. We were there the minute they opened for breakfast, and were the first ones in! It was quite fancy inside, and there was even a quartet playing live music!

With your meal, you get to have a glass of water that comes from the hot springs, which comes out in a fountain:

that's the Roman Baths in the background, next door!

Here's my Pump Room breakfast:

fruit scones with jam, and muesli with banana and honey. So good!

We went on a free walking tour of Bath afterwards, which last for about two hours. Below are some assorted photos from around Bath:

the river Avon, which runs through Bath.
Not the same Avon River for which
Straford-Upon-Avon is named, though;
our guide told us that there are 7 rivers
named Avon in England!

famous set of buildings called the Royal Crescent

Royal Crescent

The two photos below are of the Thermae Spa, a modern spa that only opened a few years ago, but which uses the same natural hotsprings as the ancient Roman Baths. Most of our group went to this spa the night of November 5th: Guy Fawkes Day. There were fireworks to celebrate the holiday, so some of them saw the fireworks from the spa; 2 of us stood with hundreds of other people in the square between the Abbey and park to watch from there instead.

For lunch on Saturday, we went to Sally Lunn's! It's the oldest house in Bath and is famous for its "Sally Lunn Bun", a sort of sweet large bun. I got a brie and cranberry sandwich (a really popular combo here, I'm noticing) on a Sally Lunn bun and it was delicious :) There was also a Kitchen Museum in the restaurant which showcased remains of the original Sally Lunn kitchen on the site, found during archaeological excavation. 

Bath: the Roman Baths

In the Great Bath, more than 1 million litres of water a day
rises from the natural hot spring at a temperature of 46 C!

My favourite part of Bath was the Roman Baths. The hot springs at this site were considered sacred before the Romans came, and the Romans built a temple on the site around 60-70 CE; the building complex grew over the next 300 years to include various bathing facilities and other structures.

Here's a model of the complex during its heyday:

Most of this is gone now, but the Great Bath and a few others remain. The Great Bath was definitely the highlight for me!

the Great Bath 

there were statues of Roman emperors
and generals spaced around the balcony of
the Great Bath; in the background is Bath Abbey

diagram showing how high the roof of the Great Bath
used to be, whereas now it's open to the air, since the
roof has long since been lost.

statues on the balcony of the Great Bath

Aside from the Roman remains, there was also a great museum attached to the Baths, that explained their history and what life was like for the Romans, and displayed artifacts from archaeological excavations of the site. This isn't a very good picture (below) but it shows this computerized representation of the baths, with people walking around. A screen above it would zoom in to a particular person and give us details of what their life would have been like. 

Bath: Bath Abbey

the Abbey at night

The weekend of Friday Nov 4th to Sunday Nov 6th, I went with 6 friends to visit Bath, a town a few hours away from Herstmonceux. It's named after the famous Roman Baths in the centre of the town, which take advantage of a natural hotspring. I'll be doing a few posts about our trip, but I wanted to begin with the incredible Bath Abbey.

We got very lucky with our hostel location- we were about a 2-minute walk from the central area of Bath, with the Abbey and the neighbouring Roman Baths as the focal point. There's been some form of worship on the Abbey site since 757 CE, when an Abbey Church was built as part of the Benedictine monastery in Bath. The Abbey has a great website if you want more photos or information; click here to see it.

We walked to the Abbey the first night we were in Bath, and then returned the next day so we could go inside. It was beautiful!

Below are two videos I took inside Bath Abbey. I didn't add the music; there happened to be someone playing the Abbey's organ at the time!

And lastly, here's a video from the square next to the Abbey. No music added here either; it's a street performer playing the fiddle (he can be seen near the end). I recognized the song immediately- it's an old British folk song called "Scarborough Fair" (famous chorus: "parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme"), and I later found out it was popularized by Simon and Garfunkel.