Holiday Season Trip 6 - Bath
Bath was our most southern point in this trip. We had a full day to explore the city that is famous with Roman bathes, for which the city is named. The day started looking for breakfast as usual. According to my quick google search, an independent coffee shop called Lulu Caffe was the earliest (8am!) place to serve breakfast within the city centre except cafe chains. We waited for the opening by walking around there and we entered the cafe once the staff inside was ready to have us.
J had cappuccino and a plain croissant. I had tea and an almond croissant. According to the cafe's website, their croissants are supplied by The Bertinet Bakery, a bakery founded by Richard Bertinet, a renowned Breton baker who now bakes and teaches in Bath. The bakery was on my must-visit-in Bath list although I believe the bakery is take-away only and I didn't know if we would just go there to get bread for snack. By visiting Lulu caffe, we were able to have a table and chairs, hot drinks and Bertinet's croissants as early as 8am and I was able to skip visiting The Bertinet Bakery. I like things done efficiently. My almond croissant was excellent by the way.
I thought we couldn't leave Bath without visiting the Roman Baths museum. I got tickets in advance. The entrance time was 9am. The museum was right next to Bath Abbey. The original was founded in the 7th century, but the current abbey we saw was a result of restoration that was organized by Oliver King, Bishop of Bath in the 16th century. While we were waiting at the entrance door to the museum for 10 minutes or so, we studied the beautiful details of the abbey's West front, including the ladders of Angels attached at the both sides of the West front. It is said they were designed based on a dream that Bishop King had - a dream of ascending and descending angels.
The Roman Baths museum was quite interesting. We walked around the ruined ancient bathe complex, including the engineering rooms to keep the spa run, and looked at various archaeological finds from pre-Roman and Roman Britain, such as tiny coins and large Temple columns. The museum was quite large and informative.
Bath is also famous for its architectural beauty. The city's streets are lined with Georgian-style buildings that were made from the local honey-colored limestone, or Bath Stone. Georgian architecture itself could looks plain, but I thought when it's presented as a large collection, its typical features - symmetrical windows, shutters, and columns on flat walls create a stunning view.
We walked up a hill to find one of Bath's iconic sights: The Circle - a ring of curved terraced Georgian townhouses. How marvelous! Also, how difficult to compact what I was actually seeing in a single photo!
Near the Circle, there was another remarkable orderly matrix of townhouses: the Royal Crescent - 30 terraced houses laid out in a 150 meter crescent!
What does the back of the beautiful long sweeping line look like? We had accidentally found the answer even before we saw the front because we came from the backside. At that time, we didn't know we were seeing the back of the Royal Crescent. It looked like a complicated patchwork. Actually it was as interesting as the frontside.
We had a tea break at Sally Lunn’s Historic Eating House & Museum. Some travel websites recommended having their famous bread buns there. Sally Lunn, a young French Protestant refugee came to Bath in 1680 and began baking rich, generous brioche buns that she used to be familiar. The buns became popular and now are known Bath Buns. The place claims that they bake the original Bath Buns and serve them in both sweet and savory way. Also, their three-story house is situated in the oldest house (established in 1482) in the city. Plus, there is a museum space to learn how the buns were made in the old days. It sounded very interesting... right?
Well, the place was very crowded. I thought they have dining space at each level, but the host seemed packing people at the ground floor first. The tables and chairs were so close to each other. Although we got a table at the corner of the room, it was honestly uncomfortable. I had tea. The teapot has tea stains and the tea cup was dull. Tea, which was their original blend tasted no flavor. The hot water smelled funny. Talking about the famous buns, I had half a toasted bun topped with cinnamon butter and served with clotted cream. The bun was fluffy and soft. It wasn't as rich as brioche but tasted fine. Their home-made cinnamon butter was a little too sweet, but I simply wanted to try their specialty. J had a savory bun. He didn't say anything about it. It probably means it wasn't so good...
The museum was tiny. It was set in just one room in the basement along with a gift shop. Honestly I believe that the house was nothing but a tourist trap. The most strange thing was almost all customers in the dining room were young asians. It was bizarre indeed...
Anyway we walked around in the town more and did some shopping!
We both chose two dishes from their set lunch menu. My starter was Falafel. J picked Khobz bjben halloumi, roasted peppers on Baba gannouj toasted bread. The serving portion was generous. We shared the starters and felt very full already. Importantly both were pretty good!
J's main was Tagine Begri bel mashmash - Moroccan Beef style tagine with caramelised onions, apricots, raisins, sprinkled with roasted flaky almonds, and sesame seeds. I had Vegetarian Tagine - seasonal vegetables cooked in ginger, cinnamon and coriander sauce served with marinated dry fruits and homemade sauce. It was very tasty but super steamy hot! I had a taste for cous cous but I didn't know whether my Vegetarian tagine would come with cous cous since the menu didn't say so. According to the menu, J's beef tagine was supposed to be served with saffron rice or cous cous. He ordered cous cous. Then, our waiter brought a plate of cous cous and a plate of saffron rice. It was a little confusing, but J kindly took rice and gave me cous cous. Thank you J!
It was getting dark outside already after the dinner. The Bath Abbey was illuminated with colorful lightings as a part of the city's festive display. A magical last view of the day.
To be continued...
