The sun was out when we got up today and our hostess promised us a fine day, which we did get. The breakfast was amazing for an uncooked selection. A wide variety of fruits and cereals, yoghurts, toast, waffles, crumpets. We went for the maple syrup on waffles and crumpets.
We boarded a No. 1 bus across the road and arrived at the Bath bus station at 9am. We thought originally that the hop on-off bus was our best option because of our lack of street knowledge, but our hostess advised us last night that the commentary on the bus was recorded and out of date, so the best option was the Mayor's Guided Walk at 10:30am. That gave us time to wander around the Roman Baths and the Abbey area, getting familiar with the streets on our map.
There were buskers in the central area and a soprano entertained us with a lovely selection of sacred songs and arias. Our guide was called Val and she was very good. The city policy is that no charge is made for the tour and no tipping is allowed. The guides do the job for its intrinsic rewards. Val gave us some history of the town and took us into the baths to see where the fabled 5000 year old water sprang up into the original bath where in medieval times men and women bathed naked.
We followed her to all of the architecturally interesting buildings that we would have seen on the bus and she encouraged us to ask questions.
She told us about Jane Austen's five years in Bath and showed us the site of a romantic walk in Persuasion. After we thanked her for a wonderful introduction to Bath, we had morning tea at a basement cafe that she told us she frequents.
She told us about Jane Austen's five years in Bath and showed us the site of a romantic walk in Persuasion. After we thanked her for a wonderful introduction to Bath, we had morning tea at a basement cafe that she told us she frequents.
After lunch we loosened the purse strings and paid for a launch trip up the Avon River (there are nine of these in England) two miles to Bathampton weir.
Val told us that Arthur Phillip retired in Bath and the launch captain confirmed that in his commentary. It was very serene on the water. When we disembarked we found a small maze nearby, which we had to try.
Next was the Holburne Museum, which had free entry, so went to the top of our list. It contained the fabulous art and craft collection of Holburne from the nineteenth century, plus a modest range of European and English paintings by famous artists. There were several life-size portraits by Thomas Gainsborough.
We trudged back to the Abbey, which also had free entry. It was very large, 67 meters long, but was not classified as anything other than the chief Anglican church of Bath. The Eastern window represented 56 stories from the life of Jesus.
There was an Australian flag on the wall over a tablet recognising Arthur Phillip.
Today was the first day of the International Music Festival in Bath and there were signs of performances being prepared all over town. There were a hundred or more primary school children in the church and we learned that they were rehearsing for presentation of a musical work based on Alice in Wonderland. We secured ourselves good seats and waited for 6pm when it was scheduled. The large church filled up with relatives and the children did very well in dealing with a difficult composition. They enjoyed themselves immensely and applauded their charismatic conductor enthusiastically - she was exceptional.
We found our way back to the B & B by bus and arranged for a taxi to pick us up at 5:30am tomorrow. We have to get on a ferry at Poole by 10am and we are hoping our connections all work to get us to Guernsey.
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