Another amazing city down on this journey of an indeterminate number of cities. You can also put a checkmark next to England.
Bath was my last stop in the UK for now, and let me tell you what, it did not disappoint. (If it weren’t for autocorrect, I would never spell disappoint correctly.) It’s not as compact as York and I would probably classify it as more fru-fru (highly technical term), but the history was absolutely oozing out of it.
Like really old history. Roman history.
Owing to my long-time interest in the Roman times, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the Roman Baths is at the top of my list of experiences so far on this journey. The terrace above the main bath that you see in the Reel above is from the 19th century, but the pool itself is original dating back to sometime around 60-70.
While we have made such incredible technological strides, I’m not sure that we give just due to all that the Romans were able to do.
Just last week on a favorite podcast of mine The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe, they were discussing how it’s been recently discovered that they created their concrete in such a way that it would basically repair itself and thus, something that was built nearly 2,000 years ago still remains today. What incredible human ingenuity.
The pool is fed by a natural hot spring which was obviously considered quite sacred back in the day, and I must say with the steam rising off of it thanks to the cold temperatures, there certainly was a mystique about the place. At one point, a grand roof was placed atop the site, a covering so high that it would have been one of the tallest buildings folks of that time would have ever seen, and the site included a hot bath, a lukewarm bath, and a cold bath, the last of which now hysterically features video projection of ancient Romans chattering their teeth when they take a dip.
A visit to Bath, and especially the Roman Baths, is certainly worthwhile, even if just a day trip from London.
Bath itself also serves as a great place from which to head to Stonehenge. You can do the trip with public transport if you so desire, but I added up the cost of that plus the entrance fee to the historic site and the total was roughly the same as the private tour company I used.
As mentioned in my last entry, the weather here is normally not great, but on this day I was quite fortunate to have crystal blue skies for an afternoon trip that takes about an hour by coach. Our group was small with just eight of us, and our 1 p.m. departure time from Bath meant that most of the larger tours would be gone or soon leaving by the time we arrived.
So there I was, standing nearly by myself looking upon these stones that truly must be seen in person to be fully appreciated. That aloneness created a perfect environment in which to reflect, imagining what it must have been like to be standing at this place way back when. Say what you will about their practices and rituals, but the feeling of spirituality was absolutely tangible here.
Another benefit to an afternoon trip in the middle of January is the low-angle of the early-setting sun. It created really cool shadows for pictures and then permitted also for great scenes of seeing the stones backlit as pictured above.
I honestly hadn’t planned on visiting Stonehenge, deciding only on a whim the night before thanks to a surplus in my budget that I would fork out the money, and I don’t regret it one bit. (To be clear, it wasn’t super expensive at around 50 pounds, but one of my aims on this trip to extend it as long as possible is to do only a minimal amount of sightseeing that costs money).
One… funny?… thing that happened to me while I was at Stonehenge occurred when a young lady that appeared to be from Asia approached me and asked to take her photo with me. I didn’t need an explanation and agreed, but she continued on in broken English and I think she said I looked like Hagrid from Harry Potter. Or she just thought I was really hairy. I’m not exactly sure.
I produced some humor myself later that same day at my Airbnb when I wanted a warm croissant but didn’t feel like trying to figure out how the oven that was also a microwave worked, so I simply put some butter on the pastry, pointed the hairdryer at it, and there we go. A perfectly warm croissant with melted butter. I’d like to think I have a little of that human ingenuity I mentioned earlier…
So that concluded my time in England, as I packed up, caught a train to London, changed stations to head south where I can now say bonjour from Paris!
If you’ll excuse me for now, I need to go find a baguette. Au revoir!
Rails to Ride 