Bath, Somerset – England

The days we did our driving trip, we went to Bath as well. It is a city in the county of Somerset in the south west of England. It took us more than 3 hours to get from Brighton to Bath and the drive was very pleasant through green fields of English country towns. When we were getting close to Bath, we saw rows and rows of terraced houses, they looked so beautiful that I almost lost control of the car in the excitement.

As we got closer to Bath, the only thing that worried me was narrow roads there. They were so tiny that I thought I couldn’t pass through with the small Volkswagen Polo we were on. Then I saw these big tours buses going from both direction and that made me even more sacred. Once we reached Bath, after wandering around for a while, we finally managed to get paid parking and were ready to start our Bath adventures.

 Bath has elegant Georgian architecture and the major attraction in Bath is the Roman baths. The ancient Romans built huge Roman Baths because of the natural thermal springs, leaving behind traces of the largest Roman baths outside of Italy. The Roman Baths are below the modern street level. There are four main attractions in Bath: the Sacred Spring, the Roman Temple, the Roman Bath House and the Museum holding finds from Roman Bath. The buildings above street level date from the 19th century.

From Roman Bath, we then went to Bath Abbey which is a Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. The work on the church made me think of Westminster Abbey (which I had only seen on TV but was going to see in London the next day). It was a really nice building both from the outside as well as the inside.

From there we went to the Royal Crescent via the Royal Avenue. The Royal Crescent was really impressive and looked so beautiful with its Georgian architecture. It is a residential row of 30 houses laid out in a crescent. From the convex side the whole complex looks like one long building shaped like a crescent. It was designed by the architect John Wood the Younger and built between 1767 and 1774 and it is among the greatest examples of Georgian architecture. The houses in the Crescent are a mixture of tenures — most are privately owned but a substantial minority of the property is owned by a housing association.

Number 1 Royal Crescent is a museum, which was then being renovated, is maintained by the Bath Preservation Trust. It illustrates how wealthy owners of the period might have furnished such a house.

I really loved the idea of so many houses looking the same. When we went closer to these houses, we saw that they had different coloured door but apart from that everything else looked the same. Even after 300 years they looked solid and beautiful and definitely well preserved. In front of the Royal Crescent, there is a big park and there were hundreds of people basking in the sun. Most of them seemed to be young and having fun with BBQ and Frisbees while others were just lying around soaking up the sun and enjoying the sunny English day.

From there we walked towards the Royal Circus. It is also a place surrounded by large townhouses build in a circle divided into three segments of equal length, each of the curved segments faces one of the three entrances, ensuring that whichever way a visitor enters there is a classical facade straight ahead.

In Bath, everywhere I looked, there was a house or shops so rich with history that it made me wonder how the people who lived there must feel. Even the cobble stoned roads still had a classical look. You could see flowers decorating the road sides and in lots of small cafes and restaurants. We stopped at one of the cafés, called The Bridge Coffee Shop, to have some coffee and cake and were very surprised to see the prices. It was £ 2.50 for a coffee and £3.50 for a cake to take away while £3.50 for a coffee and £4.50 for a cake to eat in. We decide to get a take away and then went to a park in front of the Bath Abbey.

After our coffee break we passed through the famous Pulteney Bridge that crosses the River Avon. The bridge had a flower shop, an antique map shop, and a juice bar. In the river below there was a cruise boat and along the river bank, there was a walking track and beautiful gardens.

After walking around Bath for a while, it was time for us to get back to Brighton as it was a 3 hour drive. This time we took a freeway via Oxford and Reading. The sun was setting by the time we reached Brighton and AS took some beautiful shots of the setting sun.

Please click here for more photos.