Bath

Famed for its Roman Baths and gorgeous Regency architecture, Bath is a compact, picture-perfect city. Despite its undeniable good looks, I have a complicated relationship with the city as I once spent a month living there and loathed every minute.

Nine years after vowing never to set foot in the city again, I decided the time was ripe to revisit it – and surprisingly, I didn’t hate it. In fact, I kinda liked it…

On arriving in Bath, we headed straight for the city centre and the main shopping district to get our bearings. It was a Friday, so the main streets were really busy with shoppers and filled with the usual big-name high street stores, so we wandered past without stopping.

After cutting a swathe through the city centre, we carried on northwards until we reached The Circle. The well-known circular avenue is home to some beautiful Georgian villas and we stopped to admire the architecture and take a few photos before heading to the left down Brock Street to the famed Royal Crescent (below).

The Royal Crescent is delightful and is quintessentially Bath to me. When you’re there, it’s hard not to imagine Jane Austen’s heroines ambling across the gardens in front of it or calling upon a friend in one of the houses for tea.

Having stopped to admire it, we then headed back towards the city centre. The lanes and alleyways that lead off the main shopping streets are teeming with independent shops and we spent quite a bit of time weaving in and out the lanes, looking in the many excellent shops.

By now, it was lunchtime and we were getting hungry, so we decided to stop somewhere for lunch. Luckily, we were spoilt for choice as Bath is filled with fantastic places to eat.

The Bertinet Bakery, which sells gorgeous breads, pastries and cakes, left my mouth watering and tummy rumbling.

I was sorely tempted by the lusciously plump Bath buns and croissants, but thinking I needed something more substantial for lunch, decided to come back later to pick some up on my way home. This turned out to be a huge error as when we went back two hours later, they were all gone!

We ended up stopping at Rosarios, a tiny Sicilian café in Northumberland Place (they also have a branch in Bristol). The food was delicious and the service friendly and welcoming.

I had a lovely Caprese salad washed down with a glass of homemade lemonade infused with basil and ginger. We were so impressed with the food, and their homemade pesto, that we asked for a pot of the pesto to take away with us.

Tummies full, we headed to the Roman Baths (above) to continue our sightseeing. The Roman Baths are a series of bathing pools built around natural hot springs that date back to Roman times.

There’s a museum built around them, which tells you about their history, the people who would have used the baths and showcases Roman artefacts from the site. You can also see the remains of some of the original Roman buildings.

We arrived at the baths around 2pm, which turned out to be a big mistake as a number of school groups arrived at the same time. Undeterred we headed inside, but the place was heaving and the museum packed with people standing around listening to their audio guides and blocking the displays and pathways.

The baths themselves were lovely and we were able to wander around those fairly easily, but we weren’t able to get in to see many of the displays as there were too many people, refusing to move. As a result, I didn’t see much of the museum.

I like to look at all the artefacts and read the accompanying information, but I would have been there for hours trying to do this and after a few frustrating attempts, gave up. Instead I squeezed past where I could and stopped off at the quieter displays.

What I did see was interesting and there’s clearly a lot of history to see and read about, but the Roman Baths really needs to think about capping the visitor numbers as the hoards of people made for an unpleasant visitor experience.

On leaving the baths, we headed next door to Bath Abbey (above and below). The abbey was founded in the 8th century as a Benedictine monastery and its claim to fame is that King Edgar, the first king of England, was crowned in the abbey in 973.

The abbey is a beautiful piece of architecture and is similar to most English cathedrals. We had a good look around the abbey, admiring the building, especially the lovely stained glass windows and high decorative ceilings.

Having explored the abbey, we wandered towards the River Avon to take a look at Pulteney Bridge and Weir (above). Pulteney Bridge is an 18th century covered bridge, home to shops and cafés. The Georgian bridge is a charming sight, so we stopped to take some photos, before strolling along it and looking in all the shops.

I enjoyed my day trip to Bath, even the disappointing visit to the Roman Baths, and I’d go back again.

The highlight was discovering so many incredible foodie places and I’m going to have to go back just to try some of the tempting cafés and restaurants we didn’t get a chance to visit – and I will definitely be stopping by The Bertinet Bakery to pick up a much-longed for Bath bun!

Info

The Bertinet Bakery
1 New Bond Street Place, Bath BA1 1BH
Open 8am-5pm Monday-Friday, 8.30am-5.30pm Saturday
bertinet.com/bertinetbakery/bakery.php

Rosarios Café
18 Northumberland Place, Bath BA1 5AR
rosarioscafe.co.uk

The Roman Baths
Abbey Church Yard, Bath BA1 1LZ
romanbaths.co.uk

Bath Abbey
Abbey Church Yard, Bath BA1 1LZ
bathabbey.org