Bathing in Bath

Many streets in Bath were closed today to accommodate the hanging of Christmas lights, but we weren't driving anyway. First, we walked to the Royal Crescent which was built in the late 1700s--high class houses overlooking a park. There are 8 houses and a number of apartments in this structure today.

The Royal Crescent

Then we went to the clothing museum which is definitely worth a visit. Their special display this month is the Georgian period. They own over 30,000 costumes but just display a fraction so it doesn't take long to go through it and they give you an excellent audio guide.

We stood outside the Jane Austen Museum trying to decide whether to go in. It has a lot of negative reviews on Tripadvisor and other places. But we're here so we decided to go. It is a total bust. First, you can't tour without a guide and we missed the on-the-hour tour by one minute so we had to wait 19 minutes more. During that time, we watched a movie of the last Jane Austen festival which showed a lot of current people dressing up and trying to learn how to do parlor dances. Then, our guide took us into a room and explained a little about Jane Austen's life. She called her "Jane" as though they were best friends. The rest of the exhibit was mostly about what life was like in Jane's time.

We also walked into the Assembly Rooms which are in a different location from the museum. They were meeting places for mixed company; dances were held on many evenings but mostly people went to be seen in their fine clothing. Jane Austen did participate in some of these meetings and descriptions appear in many of her novels.

The Assembly Rooms

The Roman Baths

Then, we toured the Roman Baths which is why most people come here. There is evidence of Romans coming here in the 1st century and the entire complex, complete with houses, the baths,and temples to the goddess Minerva, by the 4th century. The original baths weren't discovered until around 1870 and they've gradually restored them. One of the highlights of the artifacts are small pieces of metals where people wrote curses about people who wronged them in some way and then gave them to Minerva. They said things like "curses on George who stole my robe. Don't let him ever have children."

After all the grueling touring, we had tea at the Pump Room. We also made them give us some warm water to drink from the hot springs. It has 43 minerals in it; it also tastes like it has 43 minerals in it. The tea was lovely but cost about twice as much as our average dinner. We cannot understand why it's so expensive to serve some finger sandwiches and scones.

Tea for Two--21 GBP per person

We finished all this touring, rested for awhile and then went off to the modern baths. This experience is also expensive but then, there's 43 minerals in the water. I think it cured my gout.  We bought the two hour package which includes 2 pools and a sauna. The indoor Minerva pool is the most popular. There were plastic noodles sitting around which we thought were just for fun but when we got in, we noticed the water is chin-level so we grabbed a noodle. At various times, there are jets that make a current so you can float in a gigantic circle as the jets propel you. We did that 100 times, like little kids. At other times, there is a whirlpool section to the pool.  We walked up 5 flights of stairs to get to the rooftop pool which is probably more popular in the summer. Beautiful views of the Abbey but cold when you stand up.  Then, we discovered there is an elevator so we took that down and back into the Minerva pool.

We had so much sugar at the high tea, that we went to Wagamamas noodle joint for dinner. You can find these all over the UK; very reasonable, good food. So feeling good about our nutrition, we allowed ourselves one chocolate afterwards.

Here is one of the pigs from the Bath pig event a few years ago. The pig is the symbol of the mythical founder of Bath, whoever that is.