Roman Baths, Bath Abbey, Alexandra Park, & Bath Abbey Cemetery
I bid farewell to my Salisbury AirBnB and hopped on train to Bath Spa, which was a direct journey that took about an hour.
I had briefly visited Bath on the tour in 2010. Again, we spent only a few hours there at the time and I wanted to stay a few nights to experience the town a little more in depth.
I opted for a hotel in Bath because it actually ended up being cheaper to do so! I think Bath is kind of a posh city and so the AirBnB market runs more expensive than other towns.
I dropped my bag at the Z Hotel (fun fact -- they pronounced Z as "zed") and made a beeline for the Roman Baths. I hadn't pre-booked a ticket and that was a fatal mistake because I couldn't get in until 12:45 pm. Nah -- it wasn't fatal. I just needed to do other things until then.
So I found a meal! I went to kind of a more upscale chain, Bill's. (I went here in Brighton, too!) Look at the outside of this one! So cute.
A temple was constructed on the site between 60-70 AD in the first few decades of Roman Britain. Its presence led to the development of the small Roman urban settlement known as Aquae Sulis around the site.Once the site of one of the great religious spas of the ancient world; the people of Roman Britain came to the site to worship the goddess Sulis Minerva and bathe in the waters of the natural thermal springs, which still flow with hot water today.
The video below is the Temple of Sulis Minerva -- where the goddess Minerva was thought to live. If you look closely, you can see the water bubbling and steam rising.
Romans would come to this site to worship Minerva but also just to take to the waters, which were thought to have healing properties. There were of course the larger baths, but also steam rooms and rooms where people would receive spa services like we do now. There was even an exercise area.
The video below is the water system below the baths. You can see how hot they are!
One of the baths has been turned into a huge wishing "well"!
They even had a little water fountain where you could taste the water. It was sort of warmish and tasted good!
I didn't take too many photos here. I had visited the baths before in 2010 and it felt like a rushed visit that time. This time, certain parts were just jam-packed with people. I still enjoyed it! It's just really fun for me to imagine all the people who have walked through these areas. They have been so different from me, but we are all just humans.
Bath Abbey is across a courtyard from the Roman Baths, so I popped in there for a once-around. Bath Abbey was commissioned in the year 1088. Beautiful inside and out.
THE VERY INGENIOUS
After that I found a bookstore that I very much enjoyed and looked around for quite a while.
By this time it was 3:00 pm and time to properly check into my hotel, so I ran over to do that. I relaxed for a bit, but decided to head back out pretty quickly.
My goal was a lot of walking to an area with a view over Bath called Alexandra Park. The walk took about 25 minutes. When I say it was strenuous, I really mean that I was struggling hard a couple of times. I just did a little Googling about this trek and there were about 400 stairs. I tried to take photos and a video of what I was enduring and of course the footage just doesn't do it justice.
Actually, I have one video that is cracking me up because you can hear my loud breathing with some church bells in the distance.
Anyway, your girl persevered and made it all the way up. And what a nice view it was. But once again, the photo doesn't do justice!
Took in the view for some moments before continuing my walk. I wanted to visit Palladian Bridge, which is quite picturesque but, unfortunately, I did not heed Google's warning that it was closed and still made the entire 20 minute walk from Alexandra Park only to see that the entrance was, indeed, closed. Here's what I would've seen!
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| Someone else's photo of Palladian Bridge! |
I then turned my booty back around and made the 30 minute walk to my hotel. At least it was downhill! The trip back wasn't a complete bust, because I ran into the Bath Abbey Cemetery and I do love a cemetery.
I've never been in, or really even seen, an overgrown cemetery. Paired with the overcast afternoon and feeling like I was in the woods, it really had a secret type of vibe to it.
Right after this, I turned a corner and saw a tent set up and knew I had to get out of there immediately. It probably wasn't a great place to be alone anyway! But for a moment there I felt as though I had stumbled on something special.
It was a lot of walking this day -- around 5.5 miles. I was ready to call it, so I got dinner at a takeaway called Schwartz Brothers Burgers, which was right around the corner from my hotel and had just a little window to order at. I got the Hawaiian chicken burger and it was ridonkulously delicious. The fries were McDonald's-esque and quite good too!
Overall, a good day in Bath! And I had something very fun to look forward to the next day.