My brother in law Mark grew up in neighboring Bristol; He volunteered to be our tour guide. In true tourist fashion, we decided that the Royal Crescent had to be our first stop of the day and Mark warned us that it was a bit of an up-hill trek. We set off from the high street, ascending up one of the many streets lined with Georgian houses.
It wasn't a very steep hill, so I was surprised when we turned the corner and suddenly we were there; a beautiful crescent of Georgian Townhouses. The street we had walked up opened up into a circular facade of buildings, which looked inwards to a central grass lawn. Standing on the grass and taking in the view, I couldn't help but ask Mark why he'd told us to expect a long, steep walk; it turned out that we hadn't reached our destination yet. We were, in fact, standing right in the middle of the Circus, which is a different thing entirely. I must of been having a Northener moment.
Embracing our role as tourists, we stopped for photos before proceeding up the hill. We came to a cobbled stretch of road, (Charlotte loved sitting in her push chair and being walked across the cobbles. She would start singing and babbling to herself and change the sounds she was making with each bump.) which we crossed and out in front of us stretched an enormous lawn. As I looked to my right, I knew that this time, we had indeed arrived.
Whatever I had seen in films, they had only portrayed a fraction of the Crescent's magnitude. I was stunned by how far the buildings stretched out in front of us. Thirty three storey houses divided by grand columns, standing tall, looking out over the valley below. It was an impressive sight, and one that definitely surpassed my expectations. I wonder that Anne Elliot, the heroine of Persuasion found Bath 'oppressive, noisy, and gloomy.' Maybe a proposal on the corner of the Crescent rendered the place a little less gloomy after-all?
We munched on massive Cornish Pasties for lunch, before Emma, my Dad, and I ventured into the Roman Baths for some more exploring.
Inside I was surprised again by the size of the place. Above ground level is a Museum displaying artifacts remaining from the original Temple, and down at the level of the springs is a well preserved, sprawling maze of the original Roman Bath house.
Emma and I didn't get the memo that you're not supposed to touch the water....something about poisonous algi. We only learned about that little side note after swishing our hands around in the water to see how warm it was, though looking back, I did wonder why nobody else was doing it.
Roman stylings beside the Great Bath
Looking out on the so called Sacred Spring
Our next stop was Bath Abbey. Conveniently for us, the Medieval Minster happened to be right next to the Ancient Roman Temple. I do like a nice, compact city centre. Charlotte was a fan of the Abbey. I'm sure she's a fan of any building with soaring ceilings where her voice echoes. It didn't take her long to figure out that the louder she shrieked, the louder her echo resounded. We'll have to work on 'reverently, quietly.'
After a tasty dinner at my old favorite, Nando's, we headed to our hotel where we did a little more exploring of the gardens before hitting the hay and sleeping very soundly.
In Persuasion we read that 'the worst of Bath was the number of its plain women.' It was observed that 'one handsome face would be followed by thirty, or five-and-thirty frights.' Hopefully were weren't counted among the frights!
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