england #17 – wednesday in bath

To everyone who expressed doubt that we could see Bath, Stonehenge, Avebury, a bunch of white horses, and oh, how about the Salisbury cathedral too?? All in the same day…. why, yes, we DID somewhat underestimate how much time that would take. Just a tad. Now I can’t remember when we decided we’d spend Wednesday night down there too. Good thing, as Bath was definitely a full-day trip. Of course our whole trip was like that – I don’t think we ever did figure out how time works in England. It’s not like here, that’s for sure. And it didn’t help that it got dark so early — it was nearly full dark by 5:30. So even with early starts, our days were short.

But anyway, we set out for Bath bright and early Wednesday morning. After having a lovely breakfast in the hotel’s dining room. A delicious buffet. Good thing it was delicious, since it cost TEN POUNDS. Yes, you should always inquire as to how much the buffet is going to cost before eating it. We knew it wasn’t included with our room since we’d gone Priceline, but we figured it would be handy and that way we wouldn’t have to find somewhere to get coffee on the way to Bath. As it turned out, we didn’t really have another meal, so it wasn’t a disaster.

And the view we had while eating our delicious breakfast was worth it.

We sat by the window and looked out at the bay and ships and Wales.

So, off to Bath! It took a little under an hour to get there, I believe. Our BFF the GPS led us right in, and then we saw a park-and-ride so parked and rode. It seemed like a much better idea than trying to find a place to park IN Bath. And much cheaper too, I’m sure.

When I was working at College of Ed, Dr. Airhead went to Bath, and when he got back he just went on and on about how I HAD to go, how much I’d LOVE Bath. And he was totally right. Bath is absolutely amazing. The bus ride into town was gorgeous-

 

And once there, it’s just a festival of amazing Georgian architecture. And Bath is HUGE. Our AAA guidebook suggested allowing an hour and a half to see Bath. We were there over three hours, and hardly scratched the surface. We just walked around and went “oooOOoo!!!!” and took a zillion pictures.

Of course the big thing is the Roman baths, with their hot springs.

 

I was delighted to see what was playing at the local theatre-

I tried to explain to Kim how hysterical this movie is, and how it’s all about toys, and Cowboy and Indian try to buy Horse a barbeque for a birthday present and end up accidentally ordering five million bricks instead of fifty bricks and hilarity ensues and how Baker B and I still go around saying, “Cowwwwwboy!!!!” Cowwwwwboy!!!! Cheval!! Cheval!!!!” (it’s in French) and laugh and laugh…

 

Until this poor guy trying to enjoy his book glared at us and we had to move on.

Bath was just full of fun stuff-

 

Apparently I stand sideways while taking pictures — I seem to have a lot of crooked shots. I am pretending that I WANTED them to be that way. It’s artsy!

Bath was very crowded.

Neat bookshop –

Very impressive cathedral –

And the Bath Aqua Glass shop, where I bought earrings — they had the most gorgeous glass I’ve ever seen, and it was made from local clay. That has special minerals which give it its vivid blue coloring.

Canal boats!

Bath likes colored doors. So do I.

 

Jane Austin!! We went into the gift shop part of the Jane Austin Center, but didn’t take the tour. We were trying to save money and time. Next visit, I’d like to do the tour, though. I love Jane Austin. Even though she looks a lot more grim here than I’d expect.

 

 

Oh, there was just WAY too much to see in Bath for a few hours! And it was quite crowded, which made seeing things harder. But I highly highly recommend a visit to Bath.

We stayed as long as we could, and sadly got back on the bus when it started getting late. We’d made reservations at the Day’s Inn outside Swindon for the evening, and I was still nervous about driving at night. I wish now I’d conquered that nervousness that night – I drove at night later on, no problem at all. But nooooo, I was nervous , so we ended up stuck in the Days Inn at the Service Area outside Swindon for the evening. And it was not a very nice Day’s Inn. It was grimy and smelled awful even after we left the windows wide open for hours. The Service Areas, which are great for travel breaks, aren’t so great for dinner. I had a very non-tasty, very frozen piece of tomato pizza. It was, however, cheap. If only I’d conquered my night-driving fear earlier, we could have zipped into Swindon and found a pub, but alas, I was a scaredy-cat so we had a sad icky dinner and no beer. But as we kept saying, out of all the meals we had on our journey, that was the only really bad one. And a pintless night would NOT kill us. But we could have seen Swindon! Catwoman, who actually LIVED in Swindon, assures me we did not miss much, and in one episode of Red Dwarf somebody equates going to Swindon with death (sadly I can’t find that quote, although I did find a Space Corp Directive that states “Transformers are expressly forbidden from recreating Swindon”. Right before “Work done by an officer’s doppleganger in a parallel universe cannot be claimed as overtime.”) But I still hate I missed it. Next time!

Right now I’d pick Swindon over where I am in a flash, sight unseen. We had one snowstorm Saturday which left us with a foot of snow, it was supposed to hit again yesterday but only blew snow around, and tonight we are, yet again, supposed to be getting a wallop. Maybe another foot. Maybe a few inches. Who knows- it changes with the breeze. Or howling winds, in this case. I am trying to stay positive and not have a screaming breakdown. I’m not over last winter yet, and this one is ALREADY worse. So, I’d LOVE escaping to Swindon!!!

However, the next escape in this travelogue will be white horses and mysterious stones –