"I really believe I shall always be talking of Bath, when I am at home again–I do like it so very much"…. Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey)

“A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.” – John Steinbeck

In Bath we learnt an important lesson, you can not be married to the plan, you have to give it up if it is not working for you, learn from it and move on and be sure to carry no grudge about what you feel you have lost as there will always be something else to be gained along the way.

 

We had arrived in Bath the previous evening, checking into the Holiday Inn Express where we were to share a room for the next two nights. We were tired from the drive and after enjoying a really good meal at a local Italian Cafe and Pizzeria the kids crashed for the night. The hotel was cheap and clean and while I would avoid having to share a room with the kids if we have a choice, Bath is an expensive place to visit and it was perfectly good enough for our needs. And of course the kids loved the basic all you can eat breakfast buffet that is included in the room rate. For some reason the kids were up by six o'clock and after staying up late, watching Doctor Who, Rob and I were very tired in the morning. 

We set out for our day in Bath starting with the free Mayor of Bath's Honorary Guided Walking Tour. Making our way down to the square in front of Bath Abbey we caught our first view of the Pump Room, that iconic place in Bath every Jane Austen fan wishes to visit, completely covered in scaffolding. Oh dear not a good start but never mind.

 

Last week I began reading Northanger Abbey to Emma in order to really bring Bath to life for her. I have read some terrific books by a lady by the name of Ina Caro, who suggest you need to know somebody who lived in a historical place before visiting in order to make it a real place rather than yet one more old building. It was wonderful introducing Emma to Catherine Morland, admittedly a fictitious character, yet I'm sure a true to life example of the young ladies in Jane's day. Not only was it terrific for familiarising Emma with Bath but also she thoroughly enjoys it and I get such a kick out her laughing at the irony and thoroughly despising John Thorpe. 

 

The Kings Bath - Norman not Roman Bath

Today however my enthusiasm got in the way of my common sense and as soon as we joined the tour Julian started saying that he didn't want to go. He was really looking forward climbing the tower at Bath Abbey and following a group of people around town listening to a lot of historical information did not appeal to him. We did manage to see the Norman Baths adjacent to the Pump Room as well as seeing the outside of the Theatre. While this was very interesting for the rest of us for a little boy of four it was thoroughly boring and he let us know, loudly. Rather than giving in at this point, after attempting to bribe, cajole and eventually threaten, Rob took Julian down the road to buy him a bottle of water and then come back. When Julian realised he had to come back his moans turned into screams and wails which I could hear in the next street.   At this point I came to my senses and realised it was time to excuse ourselves from the tour, which the guide, the very lovely Beryl, agreed was for the best. She thanked Emma for her attention and ensure us we were welcome to stay, as did the other members of the group but it was obviously time to go.

 

I walked away frustrated and annoyed and Julian was well aware that I was "grumpy Mummy" until I said "okay guys sorry that was my fault it wasn't fair taking you on a tour like that, lets start over as if we have begun the day again". Then Rob had the terrific idea of standing in the middle of a pedestrian island in the road and spinning around, Sound of Music style, and told me to join in. There is nothing like your parents embarrassing themselves to make a four year old laugh and an eight year old cringe and we all ended up laughing and indeed we started the day over. Plus it was a great reminder that we must always make allowance for the kids age and even if we want to see something more interesting for adults we must try to make it interesting for the kids too. My advice would be to read as much as you can about where you are going, because I know we won't be doing this kind of walking and talking tour again, but also these little bits of information can make it more interesting for the kids too.

 

Poultney Bridge

And so we started over again and this time decided to go and take a look at the Poultney Bridge, which we found along with the full to the brim Avon River flowing under it. Both kids thought this was great and wanted a closer look so we walked over the bridge and down onto the other shore. You would have no idea the Poultney Bridge was a bridge as you cross it, with it's shops stretched across the length of it on both sides. The kids wanted to go into a café to get a better view but once reminded that they had only recently finished their breakfast they were happy to keep going.

 

On the other side of the river we found what looked like a park and so in the spirit of keeping the day running smoothly I told them we would play hide and seek and when I finished counting and turned "coming ready or not" I could see all three of them walking around the park with looks of great concentration on their faces. It turns out that they has found a maze, not one the amazing hedge mazes the kids are so keen to find as some stage, but a simple maze of paving stones in the grass. After completing the maze a few times, and may I add with the odd cheeky leap from one path to another, we walked down to have a look at the complicated looking sluice gates in the river and then to watch all the rubbish the flood upstream had sent down into Bath.

 

Assembly Rooms - The Upper Rooms

 Emma had recognised Poultney Street as the residence of Catherine Morland whilst in Bath and so while I could not show her which house she had lived in, being fictitious and all, I asked her if she would like to make a visit to the Upper Assembly Rooms and she was very keen to go. So off we went at a quick pace, telling Julian we were off to a Ball and so once we arrived we had to deliver on this promise and much to the surprise of the seven or eight other visitors, Emma and I danced in the Assembly Rooms, though not with the skill or spritely step that this magnificent room has known in the past.



The lower floor of the Assembly Room houses the Fashion Museum and Emma was desperate to visit it and so bribing Julian with the promise of "dress ups" we went to take a look. The new Georgian Exhibition was stunning, I had no idea of the total change in fashion over this period, from elaborate to flat out crazy (though Emma claims she would like to wear some of these strange creations) to the simple elegance one expects to see in a Jane Austen dramatization.

The fun really began in the dress up room where a number of tourist were trying on corsets and hoops, top hats and frock coats and let me tell you Emma was in heaven. The little boys outfits were pretty boring so Emma and I wanted to get him into a dress but Rob wouldn't hear of it and eventually we found some little coats for him to try. He is going through a "I don't want to be photographed" period and so I cant show you how cute he looked but it appears Emma was born in the wrong time period as she loves these fabulous dresses and looked just gorgeous.

 

As usual the day was getting away from us and we realised that it was time for lunch,  before taking the tower climb at three and the Roman Baths at four, it was a crazy pace to set but we were all really keen to fit these things in. There was no question that we had to dine at the Pump Room, no visit to Bath is complete without having visited to see and be seen, and while there is no longer a book to record your attendance it was a lovely place for people watching.  

It was too early for afternoon tea, which would have been my choice, but we enjoyed a very tasty lunch anyway. I wasn't excited over the kids menu and was really pleased when they chose a delicious cauliflower and leek soup with a basket of fresh bread which was topped up by our very nice waitress. It seemed she was really pleased and surprised at the kids choice for lunch. Rob and I had delicious but very small servings, Rob a traditional English pie and I had a pulled pork salad with rocket, apples and walnuts. Very nice but both of us were ready for an early dinner that night, however the atmosphere in the Pump Room, with live music provided by a very skilled pianist, made up for the small portion sizes.

To add to some extra drama to the day we found that Emma's camera and the beautiful woven bag she made in kindy were missing, we felt sure that they were in the Fashion museum so we made a quick call and had no luck. We encouraged Emma to stay positive and hoped for the best.

 

The kids were very keen to get back to the Abbey so not to miss our tower climb and we entered the Abbey just as they were closing it for a private ceremony, so only got a very brief glimpse of this lovely church and was left with the impression of beautiful stained glass and fan vaulting. With a group of perhaps fifteen or so others we were quickly ushered out the back of the church and into a tight spiral staircase and told we had a one hundred and forty steps to head up to the first landing where we could rest. Going up is definitely easier than down, not on your legs but definitely on my nerves. The kids ran up without any problem and the whole way up I kept thinking "how will we get them down again without having them roll head over heels the whole way."

 

 

 

 

 On the landing we saw the bell ropes hanging from roof and we were told how they can be rung manually (picture the hunchback of Notre Dame hanging from a rope in the ceiling), or by hand using a simple rope pull system on the wall, or by using a now decommissioned machine that looks like a hand wound music box or finally using an electronic devise on the wall programmed to play around twenty four different songs. We were then taken to see the inside of the clock face that faces the council chambers, rather than the town square, as it is the council that pays for the upkeep of the clock. We were told to be sure that we didn't touch anything or we could inadvertently change the time, so we kept a eagle eye on the kids. We also got a good sense of how high up we were when we could see the top side of the fan vaulting from our vantage point in the roof space and through a peep hole in the bell room we looked down upon the church floor way way below.

 

After peeking into these special spaces, with doors so low even I had to duck and Rob was bent double, we where told we could climb the last eighty or so steps up to the roof terrace. We could hear the wind howling and we were warned that we couldn't stay out long as it was just too windy. Also they warned us that the bells might ring as we climb to the top of the tower and whilst not loud enough to deafen you they can give you quite a shock, and you wouldn't want to take a tumble down those stairs. So out we walked onto the roof and the wind was so strong it literally blew me off my feet much to everyone's amusement.

The kids were contented to stay quite close to the door but we all got a terrific view of Bath, including the Roman Bath's and a nearby rugby match. Julian made my day but announcing "mum this is the funnest day", "really Julian that's great I'm glad", "yeah mum everything else today was boring but this was the funnest".

 

I am pleased to say we made it down all those tiny spiral stairs in one piece and moved next door to the Roman Baths. My cousin, who has travelled much of the world as an airline pilot, told me that the Roman Bath's are best visited in the evening by torchlight and she was absolutely right. It was still light when we arrived at four, with last entry being four thirty, but by the time we had made our way slowly through this wonderful complex of ancient Bath's and fabulous artefacts twilight was closing in. Once we arrived at the Great Bath the torches had been lit and it was just perfect.

 

 You could imagine the ancients coming here to bathe, gossip and worship at the temple of Sulis Minerva. It is harder to imagine how such a big complex, the roof of the Great Bath once stood forty metres high, could have collapsed and been buried from the sixth century until the nineteenth century.

Sulis Minerva 

The Bath's close at five thirty so we had to continue around the complex when it would have been very nice at this stage just to sit and rest. It had been a very long day but before we left however we it was time to take the waters, something we had overlooked while in our rush to leave the Pump Room for our Tower Climb. Perhaps the water would revive us after such a long and busy day, or perhaps not as both kids decided the warm water with a metallic taste was decidedly "yuck" in their opinion.

 

 

Having seen the Sacred Spring, the remains of the hypocausts, the fabulous artefacts, the various baths and terrific displays that brought the complex to life and finally tried the waters it was time to leave. It was lucky we had finished seeing everything as we were chased from the building by a grumpy guard with a decided lack of a sense of humour as it was closing time.

 

The Sacred Spring

 

In retrospect we owed Julian a real debt of gratitude as if we had stuck with the walking tour we would not have had time for all the other wonderful things we did on this day in Bath. As usual everyone was hungry and so we walked quite a distance to a pub recommended on Trip Advisor, which it turns out has the best Sunday Roast apparently but does not serve meals on Saturdays, good grief. There was one thing left for us to do, and that was to return to Café 84 on Lower Bristol Road, that we had so enjoyed the night before. It reminded us of being home in Fremantle, with great pizza and pasta and friendly service. It is unusual for us to go to the same place twice but it was really good.

A final footnote on this wonderful but exhausting day, a number of phone calls to the Assembly Rooms later and it didn't look good for Emma's camera and bag, but we decided to drop in on the way out of town the next day and lo and behold there it was at the front counter waiting for us, and quite surprisingly there were a number of photos of other people in dress ups. Apparently it had been found at the end of the day in the piles of clothes but strangely no one had handed it in. Emma has sworn to never let it out of her sight again, perhaps we should start labelling our belongings because it may be the first but surely wont be the last time we leave things behind.

 

But now its time to leave Bath behind on our journey home to Dorset but first perhaps a stopover at Stourhead, but that is a story for another day.

 

(Date of visit to Bath : Saturday 25th January 2014)