Friday November 26, 2004

Nice short break in Bath ( or Aquae Sulis )

Got back yesterday after a short break in Bath or as known to the Romans as Aquae Sulis. We stayed in a hotel in the centre called the Queensbury. We left the car with them and had two days wandering around reminding us of when we visited over fifteen years ago.

Bath is on one of its 'ups' in its long history and is very smart and clean. We were both surprised at how quiet it was in terms of traffic and people. I am sure in the summer it was very busy. So this an ideal time to visit the place.

The place everyone visits is the Roman Baths of course. The tour is excellent and we bought a double ticket to visit the Costume Museum later in the day. The baths tour is very interesting as you walk around the site an audio guide tells you the history and other useful information as well.

While a sewer was being dug in Bath the head of Minerva was found luckily undamaged which is now on display.

Amazingly some 'curses' have been found on the site which have been translated to English so we can read them. These were thrown in the water in the hope the gods would do what was asked on the curse. Return of property, making someone well again were typical reasons for writing these curses.

The costume museum also had an audio guide and a section on the gowns made for the various TV and films of the Jane Austen books.

Bath is a nice city to walk around. There is plenty of lovely cream coloured Cotswold 'style' stone buildings which look their best on sunny days. The river Avon also runs through the city which has a nice path you should walk along. There are also plenty of shops including antique ones to visit plus the indoor market by the river where we purchased several second hand books at a reasonable price. I now have a new Jack Higgins book, two books of short stories by Raymond Chandler and two by Robert Harris.

Near Christmas time they have a Special market which they were erecting while we were there.

The other site people go and look at is the circular 'circus' of houses and the Royal Crescent where one of the houses is a very discreet expensive hotel

We ate in our hotel on the first night but then visited the Moon and Sixpence which was recommended and was excellent. At both venues I enjoyed a bottle of the local beer made by Bath Ales .