bath Keyword
Prior Park, Bath
It is very handy visiting a place where you have locals willing to show you around. During my visit to Bath, Lucy’s mum took us to one of her favourite places in the town, Prior Park.
Built by Ralph Allen, the local big shot, the gardens were important in defining the concept of the English Garden. Beautifully landscaped and maintained the site is something of a wonder. While Ralph Allen’s mansion is now a private school, the parks are owned by the National Trust. Its most striking feature is the Palladian bridge, which is one of only four left in the world.
I don’t know what else I can say about the Park, it was beautiful beyond words and I am indebted to my hosts for taking time out of their day to show me this little piece of history and paradise. Enjoy the photos I have attached in this gallery and keep an eye out for the 1800′s graffiti. Wild!
Bath Water
On Wednesday I caught the train for about an hour and a half to see Bath. There to greet me was Lucy, one of my friends from the Sydney Railway Square YHA.
Lucy proved to be a very capable tour guide, showing me around the sights of the town. Bath is most famous for, you guessed it: the Roman Baths that were built here over the natural hot springs. Suprisingly the baths were lost for a long time, only being discovered when the basement of a house built over the area kept mysteriously filling with water.
The complex allows tourists to examine the baths but, unfortunately, not to swim in the warm water. Restored to what is believed to be a pretty accurate representation of how the baths would have looked during the Roman times (except there was a roof over the baths) the site does a pretty good job of transporting one back to the heady days of the expanding Roman empire.
On display are artifacts recovered during the excavations and rooms upon rooms of the original Baths. After walking through the site and seeing pretty much all we could, I downed a cup of the water, said to have restorative properties. It tasted like mineral water and eggs, and was served at body temperature supposedly straight from the source. It didn’t make me sick, so the water couldn’t have been all bad. Kinda is fun to say I’ve drunk Bath water from the Roman Baths in Bath.
At 11 quid for a self guided walk around the Baths it was a little expensive for a povo traveller, but worth a look for all those interested in taking a glimpse back in time.
The gallery attached to this post includes some shots from around Bath, most notably of the Abbey, the Royal Cresent and the Circus.