b a t h

This past week has been a bit of a strange one in London. The sun came out shining at the beginning of the week and has stuck around since! So, with that in mind, I went with a group of friends to Bath. It is a place only 1.5 hours out of London by train so it makes for a great weekend getaway. Originally, we had planned to go for the whole weekend but had trouble securing a bed and breakfast for 7 people so we had 1 day. 

We took the 9am train and got there fairly early. Right away, we noticed how quiet a town this was in comparison to the pandemonium that we witness on a daily basis in London. As I've traveled, I've realized that big cities is not where my heart lies. I long to travel to quiet towns and country sides where the things to appreciate are not the shopping and the museums but the natural surroundings and the atmosphere. Bath definitely had both :) 

A small town with great architecture. It is much cleaner than other big cities and it has that small town feel. While there are your chain stores like Disney, Gap Kids, Costa, etc., there are also lots of small boutiques which are independent and carry unique items all around. There were also lots of great restaurants in town as well. Oh... another great quality I look for in any place I go to :D

In terms of attractions in Bath, we had a chance to go to a few of them. While we wanted to go to the Thermae Spa, the queue was just massive! Plus, they didn't take reservations so that was unfortunate. I am not normally a spa going person (I've never been once) but I did want to go this time. The reason why I wanted to go is because I have seen some pretty amazing photos of people in the pool, overlooking the sunset with the glass of champagne in hand. I still want to go and do that one of these days but not this trip :) 

We visited the Roman Bath's which were constructed during the times of the Roman empire. A natural hotspring heats the water at this historic location. While the bath sits in the center of Bath amongst more modern buildings, some of the structure you could tell has Roman origins. It is really quite neat to see. Too bad we weren't allowed to go in the water haha! It was dirty anyway - it was actually filled with rain water! 

We also saw the Bath Abbey - located right beside the Roman Bath. What most people see in post cards of Bath though is the crescent and the Circus. Those two sites were pretty amazing to see simply because of the way the buildings and the architecture were designed. The Royal Crescent is so vast, it was impossible to capture in just one frame... You have to make a panorama of it! I can imagine that one of the best parts of living in one of the townhouses would have to be the fact that the properties overlook a park. It was littered with people just picnicking and relaxing and it was good to just sit there and be a part of that. Though... we unknowingly climbed the fence into residential park property haha. 

Food for the day

Foodwise, we had feast upon feast that day. That may have been the best part of the day. I'm a huge foodie (in the sense that I love it and it is my favorite pastime) and I thoroughly enjoyed the meals I had that day. The first place we went to was Sally Lunn's. Their buns are known in Bath to be the oldest and the original Bath bun. Round in shape, it is a brioche bread that tastes amazing when toasted and topped with butter and jam :) But Sally Lunn's was not only a place to eat the original bun, it was also a great tea house. The location is like a house converted to a restaurant so it had a very homey feel to it.

Another first I had was high tea! We went to the Roman Bath Pump Room for high tea in the afternoon. I had always thought that high tea would be somewhat pretentious and not a manly thing. Boy was I wrong. The food was great and the tea was... well... pleasant. Oh and the scones! ... I've said too much. 

Finally, for dinner, we roamed around the city, trying to find a place for 7 people but failed to find one for the longest time. By the time we found a place, we were like zombies... willing to eat just about anything. We did find a place just 15 minutes away from the train station called the Tramshed. Great atmosphere and good food. It was a great way to end the day :) 

Overall, a great visit to Bath. While we did not stay the full 2 days as originally intended, we did have enough time to see everything we wanted to see.