On Tuesday, Nicole and I took the train to Bath. As I've already posted, Bath is famous or its hot spring. Obviously, the Roman baths are a big draw to the city, but the hot springs (as a health spa) were a draw in the Victorian era as well and that was when Bath really became known as the social center thought of today. Rich families would go to the baths for all manner of ills, and would use this as a reason to socialize with each other as well. Anyone who has read Jane Austin may have gotten a flavor of this. There's the Pump Room (where water was pumped from the spring to the new baths and people gathered to drink tea and dance during the daytime) and there were the Assembly rooms for dancing, tea and cards in the evening. Following the wealth, there were also all manner of boutiques that sprung up in the town, making it a place for fine shopping as well.
All of these attraction are still part of the character of downtown bath to some extent. The Pump Room is located right next door to the Roman Baths and is now a restaurant. The Assembly rooms are available to tour (or can be rented as an event space) and there are still all manner of boutiques lining the downtown walks. As with the earlier times, it is also still crawling with visitors.
Nicole and I started at the Roman Baths. We learned a great deal about the baths - how they were built, how they were used and maintained, and how they once looked (quite different from what is left today). There's really too much to post about, so I'll just tell one of my favorite bits. Since there was clearly a goddess living in the spring, visitors to the spring would throw offerings into the source of the hot spring (which was off limits to bathers). In excavating and cleaning out the spring, workers found all manner of roman coins, everyday objects (like hair combs, pottery, jewelry) and these little bits of rolled up lead sheets. The lead sheets were, apparently, curses. Anyone who was angry with someone else, could write what they were angry about, ask the goddess to curse whoever was responsible, roll it up, and throw it into the spring. Many of the curses were for petty things, like clothing being stolen out of the baths, but he curses were far more severe ("may he pay for it with his own blood").
For lunch we decided to get pasties and go down to the park on the river to eat. We had to pay to get into the park, but it was worth it. The flowers were all blooming and the river was beautiful. There were a number of stripey lawn chairs set out on the grass, but I was too chicken to go commandeer one. As it turns out, they were for public use, though, so we would have been more than welcome to use them.
After lunch we walked up one of main roads lined with boutiques, stopped in a bookstore, and made our way up to the circus (a circular building divided into houses). At this point, Nicole realized she didn't have her camera anymore (you can see her just before she noticed the absence in the picture) so we retraced our steps and found it near the Roman Baths in a chocolate shop we had visited earlier.
Camera in hand, we made our way back uphill to the Assembly Rooms. Unfortunately, the rooms were closed for a function, so we couldn't get in to see them, but we did go downstairs to the Museum of Clothing. They had examples of clothing from the Victorian years up to modern times. It was interesting, but had fewer of the older dresses that interested me, and more modern dresses, which were interesting but less novel.
At this point, we were ready for a rest, so we made our way back down the hill to a tea shop that we had found recommended online. Sally Lunn's has apparently been around since the early 1800's and is famous for its sizeable buns, which can be spread with either savory or sweet toppings. We each ordered a Sally Lunn Bunn (one with strawberry jam, one with Lemon Curd) and tea. It was very fun and quite tasty. Unfortunately, I didn't have the guts to take a picture. There were just too many people around us, and it seemed rude. Later, though, we realized that we were surrounded by Americans and it probably would have been find. I imagine everyone was contemplating something similar.
Our table was about two inches from our neighbor's table - a couple with their infant daughter who were visiting from California. Seeing as we were such close proximity, we soon struck up a conversation. They told us about their visit to the Thermae Baths, which are the modern hot spring-fed baths located around the corner from the Roman Baths. I stored that information away for later.
By the time we were done with tea, most of the shops were closing up, so we headed home.
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