Epic Grad Trip: Bath

Thursday morning we said good-bye to London and caught a morning train down to Bath. We got into town around noon, checked in, got settled a little and then headed out to the Roman Baths, which were cooler than I expected really. Bath screams Jane Austen to me, and it was fun seeing the 18th centuries upper parts of the bath house that was in use during her time, but what I found even cooler were the actual ruins of the actual Roman bath house.

The whole ingenious set up that they had for heating the bath rooms, the tiny etched gems, the alters, the pools -- it was all really fascinating. Which explains the paucity of pictures that I have from this tour. :-) But, here are some of the remains of the old Roman structure that was on the site.

After the tour we headed over to the famous Sally Lunn restaurant for a High (herbal) Tea. Sally Lunn's is famous for their brioche buns and deservedly so. We had a sweet bun with jam and clotted cream and a savory bun with smoked salmon. The buns were so big and light and just melt in yur mouth delicious that I could eat one every single day. Sally Lunn is also famous for having been in business since the 1600s, and you can pop down into their little kitchen museum and see was cooking was like in the olden days. This was also where Lori started her British jam collection -- she'd loved the strawberry so much that she bought herself a jar, and then we had to go back and get another one later. I think by the end of the trip Loo's collected half a dozen jars of jelly. Silly girl.

It was at this point, though, that I diagnosed Lori with travel exhaustion and homesickness, for which I prescribed a nap and an Internet connection. We got back to the hotel, and I made a quick trip to the loo and came out to find this

I was restless, though so I changed into work out clothes and headed out on a run. Note to self: totally worth finding time to go on a run when traveling. It was really fun discovering cute little side streets and well-tended parks and I somehow ended up running near the Royal Crescent, and I enjoyed it very much. By the time I got back, Lori was feeling much better and I took her out to this way spangled out Thai restaurant that was quite good, but didn't turn her into a Thai aficionado the way our first Indian restaurant changed her life forever. And then it was time for the Bizarre Bath tour.

After four days of filling my head with historical information, Bizzare Bath was a nice reprieve. The tour promises absolutely no history and was absolutely hysterical. Magic tricks, hilarious commentary, a stuffed bunny -- um, yeah, it's super British, but Lori and I laughed until our stomachs hurt. The most hilarious bits were the things the guide would mutter as we were moving from one spot to the next, but you had to be standing close to catch it. Lori and I really wanted some ice cream or cookies after the tour, but everything closes at like 5pm in Bath, so we settled for some French desserts at one of the only restaurants still open before heading home and to bed.

The next day we headed out of bath on  small bus tour. First stop: Stonehenge

I'm glad we'd decided to go with the tour out of Bath, because while Stonehenge was really cool and impressive, and surprisingly beautiful, I don't know if it would have been worth the half day to do it on its own. Much more followed. But before we go on, let's talk and stop a minute about Lori's attire. First, please not that while I'm in a sweatshirt -- because, you know, it was chilly -- Lori is walking around in a short-sleeved t-shirt. In fact, Lori didn't even have a sweatshirt with her that day. I almost never took my sweatshirt off while we were in the UK, Lori almost never wore one. But, to be fair, she also almost never complained about being cold, so I have to give her credit for that.

Second thing about Lori's attire is that she's wearing a BYU Idaho shirt (I'm also sporting BYU blue, but that's irrelevant to the story.) As we were walking out of Stonehenge, there was a family of people on the other side of the chain link fence who spotted Lori's shirt. The following, shouted conversation ensued:

Random Lady: BYU Idaho! Do you go there?
Lori: I'm going there in the Fall
Random Lady: We know someone who's going there is the fall, too!
Lori: Cool!
Random Lady: His name is Sam Pulsipher (spelling?)
Lori: Okay.

Next up was Avebury -- a henge much like the famous one, but much, much bigger and unfortunately, not as well preserved. The ditch is still pretty impressive, though.

This rock was called the Devil's Seat or something like that and I'm pretty sure there was a reason for that, but I don't remember. Mostly what you need to know is that this is Lori's "devil" face.

After Avebury we stopped for lunch in a town called Laycock. This was one of only a few pubs that Lori allowed us to eat in, and of course the bus driver got us properly prepared for it by telling a ghost story about the men's bathroom.

What you really need to know about this village, though, is that it was used in a lot of movies and most famously in several of the Harry Potter movies. For example, if memory serves this was Harry Potter's parents' house (I've only seen each of the movies once, so I don't really know).

After Laycock we headed to Castle Combe in the Cotswolds. This teeny village is also famous for being in movies, including the old Dr. Doolittle with Rex Harrison which I love.

And then we headed back into Bath. We'd built a good rapport with the tour guide during the day, so he took us on a little side trip up to his favorite viewing spot of Bath -- breathtakingly gorgeous.

 

We still couldn't find any ice cream that night, but we did find Jamie Oliver's Italian diner. It was good. Not spectacular, but no way I could note that Jaime Oliver had a restaurant and not go to it.

We only spent two nights in Bath, but took an afternoon train out of town on Saturday. Unfortunately we spent *most* of the morning trying to located the Bath at Work museum that we wanted to go to. It was not, say, the Winston Churchill museum, but I liked the small-town curated feel of it and it had some fun working machinery and a decent audio guide. Plus: pretty baubles.

And that was it for us in Bath. I'll leave you with a parting shot of the Royal Crescent.