The Bath

Have a...

No, we're not talking a relaxing soak in a foaming tub, though the city of the same name may well have the same effect - it certainly does have that effect on me. The sheer joyful yellowness of this park-infested town has lured me back there time and time again, so here's (ta-daaah!) a few thoughts and titbits for fellow Bath enthusiasts or those about to go there for the first time...

First off, Bath is of course named after a bath, viz. the Roman Baths smack in the middle of the place. Past the Cathedral, it's virtually unmissable anyway - in the winter months, just follow the permanently installed cloud of steam. If you can avoid getting swamped by millions of French schoolchildren who mysteriously always seem to be around the place, the Roman Baths Museum is well worth a visit; also, it's the only way to actually get anywhere near that steaming water! The entrance fee is pretty hefty, but worth it anyway - the audio guides on offer, however, aren't. They may be the latest in technological gizmo-ery, but the comments they produce are either patronising or utterly useless. Stick to the written stuff around the museum, or if you must, make sure you listen to the heart-wrenching dramatisation that accompanies Mercatilla's gravestone. A good laugh really! And for all their archaeological smugness, the audio guides completely fail to elucidate on how the hell that towering Flavian hairstyle was actually made anyway...

The Roman Baths...

..and the relaxing effect they have 2,000 years down the line!

And if you have forked out for the Roman Baths, why not go and see the Museum of Costume as well, seeing as it's available on the same ticket. Even those easily bored with dimly-lit rooms full of old stuff will find lots of things to marvel and/or giggle at in here - from the glory of the three-chairs-per-lady 18th century paniers to the two-standing-spaces-on-the-tube-per-bloke '80s shoulder pads, everything is in evidence her, and all original too!

For the rest of Bath itself, the best recommendation is to "do as the Romans (or in this case Bathonians) do". Drift about the place - it isn't that big anyway. With any luck, you will come across the Royal Crescent (and the even more impressive Victoria Gardens down the hill from there), the Circus (you mean people actually live in there?), the Abbey (can't really miss that anyway), Pulteney Bridge (very easy to miss if you happen to be on it because it doesn't look like a bridge at all. The comparisons with the Ponte Vecchio are a bit wishful thinking, but they share the credits for being Europe's oldest shopping bridges), the River Avon (follow the noise) and Sally Lunn's House, home of the famous Bath Bun (is it? Famous, I mean.).

Also, red marks in the calendar awarded to anyone who manages to spend a day in the streets of Bath without encountering at least one street theatre walk act and three different nationalities of busker - they practically grow them in Bath! The buskers' nightly retreat and certified Weird Bohemian Quarter of Bath is around Walcot Street, along the river to the north, where the hip and the hippie mate easily...

Grub: if you're tempted to try the famous Bath Buns, avoid Sally Lunn's and dive down the stairs right opposite - the Bath Bun Tea Shop does them at far more agreeable prices, the people are nicer and you can sit outside too, weather permitting. If, with your Bath Bun, you prefer string quartets instead of buskers, try the Pump Room above the Roman baths. It's pretty damn expensive, but pretty damn posh too... Cookies on the run are best got from Ben's Cookies (damned if I remember the name of the street - it's one of the tiny, permanently scaffolded ones in the pedestrian maze), and for lunch/supper the best bet is the Puppet Cafe just underneath Pulteney Bridge (on the greener side. Sorry no address, as there isn't a street anywhere near it!). It's vegetarian, dead cheap, and delicious, and their garlic bread is mot definitely the biggest and garlickiest I've ever tasted! They put funny things in salads too, and in summer they occasionally have Punch & Judy shows on the terrace overlooking the Avon; though how they're going to drown out the roar of Pulteney Weir I've no idea. If you're in a distraught mood, climbing the steps up to the Weir and singing to the river is highly recommended by the way...

The real richness of Bath, however, lies in its surroundings. Landscapes so unsettlingly beautiful that you're wondering half the time whether you've accidentally ended up in a landscape garden. Well, sometimes you have!

The view from a random rich bastard's garden in Freshford, nr. Bath

For me, the Top Three of Bathy landscape gardens are:

Victoria Gardens in the north-west part of the town itself - huge lawns, weird trees, and a botanical garden to hide in

Prior Park Gardens overlooking Bath - get there by bus no. 2 or 4 from the station, and marvel at the reconstructed glory of one of Capability Brown's original gardens, complete with intentional wilderness, a totally over-the-top bridge spanning a lake that wasn't there in the first place, some real cows, and a building I still refuse to believe is actually a school.

The Peto Garden at Iford Manor - if you must, take the car and navigate the maze of country lanes between Freshford, Westwood, and Farley, hopefully to find the gardens (some of these are one-way!), but if you have enough faith in the weather, try the walk from the top end of Freshford (a place called Dunkirk Mill) through enchanted forests and a little meadowy valley that must surely have auditioned for the part of Elysian Fields several times!

The garden itself is relatively recent (1910s) and positively packed with odd views and little surprises. With an almost post-modern (yea right) attitude to mix'n'match, the architect owner of the place has arranged bits of Renaissance Italy alongside Roman columns, mediaeval German statuary and a tiny Japanese pagoda, all tastefully (well, full of tastes anyway) set among a riot of shrubs and flowers...

Spot the Japanese pagoda. No, not the pooped red thing in the foreground!

Oh Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?

From the Shakespearean to the modern and ancient at the same time: with the ring of both pagan worship and a Peter Gabriel song to it, Solsbury Hill is the perfect place to review your Bathy holiday from the top as it were. Take a bus to Batheaston and basically keep going uphill, ignoring the bloody big bypass they cut into the side of the ancient hill (it's mercifully invisible from the top), and get all romantic and windswept up there. Or catch the much-touted energies of the water goddess Sulis and her weather-making mate Sol in the fun-sized labyrinth... and the abundance of cowpats on Solsbury Hill might mean you'll really need a bath after this!!

Ommm.....