Sarah: Bath, England - Ancient baths ancient stone
Trip Start
Dec 27, 2007
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60
80
Trip End
Dec 28, 2008
Bath,
England,
United Kingdom
Thursday, June 19, 2008
We flew into London and it took us 4 hours to find our hostel - a long tube and then rail trip and then bad directions from the website which had us walking around for 2 hours. That night we slept for over twelve hours and woke up the following afternoon, despite being in a dorm room! Didn't do anything but recover from the previous day and plan our trip around the UK. We realised that Wimbledon started soon, so decided to head out of town for a week and then come back and try to get tickets.
We headed east to our first stop, Bath. A very cool town. Most of it was built in the 18th century, and several famous people lived there for a time, including Beau Nash, Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. On our first walk through town I kept exclaiming, "it's so ENGLISH!" - I know. It's just that I've read about little english towns and villages in story books and history books since I was a kid, and now to see it was kind of weird. Of course, the most famous site in Bath are the ancient Roman baths. In the late 19th century they excavated right down to the
Roman level (the Normans and Victorians had also added their bits) and it was pretty amazing to be staring at a bathing pool and standing on steps that were built and used 2000 years ago! You know I love the history stuff. It was especially interesting because we bought 2 seasons of the acclaimed TV series ROME, in South America and have been watching it for the past few weeks, so we were imagining the characters from there going about their conniving and intrigue (it seems there was a lot of that in ancient Rome) while bathing, sauna-ring and the rest. It has been turned into a really tasteful, first-class exhibition and education facility, with free audio guides, 3D models and computer graphics, and many artefacts from the Roman period in England.
Our first trip into town took us along the canal, created during the canal-wave of the early 19th century which saught to link the east and west coasts of Britain by joining the rivers with man-made canals. These were created all around the country but were only used for about 40 years before the railway took over. It was so lovely and quaint - all the barges along the canal, many converted into homes, and heaps of people enjoying walking, running or biking along the pony track. We actually got to see two canals using the locks - one going up and one going down - really fascinating, and such and ingenious idea! It took quite a while though. Another day we got to see the ones near Stonehenge that go right up the side of a hill. There are 16 locks in total and it takes 6 hours to get your barge to the top. However, there is a pub once you get there, and I'm pretty sure a beer would be in order! That day we also went to the Circus - a ring of 2-storey townhouses built like an inward-facing Colosseum, and Royal Crescent, a famous curved street.
Our second day in Bath we took a tour to Stonehenge. Yep, the famous stones themselves. How cool to finally see them for real! And on summer solstice too, one of the most important and sacred days of the year in ancient times. We couldn't go until later in the afternoon, because on summer solstice, more than 25 000 people camp there and go to worship or just gork at the stones and hope to see the sun rising through the eastern arches. But of course, being England, the sun wasn't shining that day. Those sarcen stones are enormous. It really is a remarkable work, and due to the fact that it is no longer fully intact, you can see aspects of the workmanship and
engineering that was required to get them to stay in place. We learnt that the earliest stones, the bluestones of the inner circle, put down around 6000 years ago, were actually carted from Wales, 500 km away! They are believed to have been shipped round the southern cross and then up the River Avon. Big job. Even the huge sarcen stones were brought from 50 km away.
Since London, we haven't actually been staying in hostels. We've taken up "couchsurfing" - it's a worldwide phenomenon that is coordinated by a website (couchsurfing.com) whereby people offer a bed or a couch for free and travellers search for free beds around the world. Not only does it save you a hell of a lot of money (especially here in the UK) but it is a great way to meet some fantastic people. So far we've couchsurfed in Bath, Cardiff, and Cheltenham, where we are now. In Bath, we stayed with a middle-aged man, Charles, who, having recently been through a divorce, lives in a flat and I think has couchsurfers for the company, as he has never couchsurfed himself yet. He made us a lovely pasta meal on the first night, and his spicy version of shepard's pie on our last night, as well as plying us with wine non-stop every night! In Cardiff, we stayed with a lovely Welsh couple, Abby and Huw, who plan to travel around Europe couchsurfing but thought they would make their contribution beforehand. Huw (Hugh) speaks Welsh fluently, as his father's first language is Welsh. He watches rugby on the Welsh channel, in the Welsh language, and speaks it with many of his friends. Here in Cheltenham we are staying with another lovely couple - Slovaks Josef and Zuzanna. They too, cooked us a meal (a potato, onion and bacon Slovak dish) and made us drink baravicka, a strong Slovak liquor 40% alcohol, made from juniper berries. Everyone has been so friendly and so hospitable - we never expected to be provided with home-cooked meals, wine and beer, desserts (Charles whipped up some cream and served with fresh Somerset strawberries). We've been blown away really. We're looking forward to having people to stay with us when we get back.
