Bath

Recently, I spent a rather overcast (but not rainy!) day in Bath.  It's kind of a hike from London- about 2 1/2 hours by train, and it's actually much closer to Cardiff than I had thought it would be.  Next time, lesson learned- combine it with a trip to Wales instead of hustling to make it back to London at the end of the day.  

Bath is adorable, with majestic Georgian houses orderly constructed in a valley surrounded by tall, rolling hills.  It's slightly tourstific, but large enough so you get a sense that people actually do live and work here outside the tourism industry.  Like all good places where tourist flock, there is a nice pedestrian area downtown around the main attractions: Bath Abbey and the Roman Baths.

They also used Bath as a stand-in for Paris in the latest Hollywood incarnation of Les Misérables.  

This is the Pulteney Bridge.  I think this is where Javert offs himself in the film?  I don't know, it was one of those movies I kind of put on for background noise.  Although, after hearing Rusell Crowe attempt to sing, my heart was somewhat gladden when he chose to throw himself off a bridge.  And that's the end of having to listen to that!  

Even on a Very Grey Day, Bath oozed charm.

Or, even if you saw something less-than-charming, you forgave it instantly.

One thing about the uniformity of the Bath Stone used in every building: if you don't clean your house, it shows.  The stones go from limestone glow to smoggy dull filth very quickly.

I hiked up the hill to The Circus and the Royal Crescent, a series of perfectly preserved elegant row houses surrounded by green space.  The entirety of Bath is deemed a UNESCO site, and I did see quite a few people in Jane Austen costumes as she lived here for a time.

I probably should have taken this girl's example and rolled back down the hill, just for fun.

I strategically waited until the end of the day to pay my way into the main attraction here: the Roman Baths that give Bath its name.  It's been a tourist attraction for much longer than most places, as the Romans would come here to clean up and gossip and relax in the warm waters.

For good reason: this is the only hot spring in all of the UK.  The Romans built a huge complex of baths here to take advantage.  The site is still surrounded by spas, and people come here to relax and soak in the more modern baths nearby.

Oddly enough, the spring and the roman bath had been forgotten about until somewhat modern times, when it was uncovered in the stinky oozing mud, and restored by throwing a Georgian facade on the front of it.  Somehow, it works.  The Victorians rediscovered the site and swore by its healing waters.  You can still buy little bottles of bath spring water in the gift shop to bring home to ailing friends.

There was a musician with a guitar and amp entertaining people in the square with what can only be described as noise pollution.  I loved the looks he was getting when he tried a very cat-in-heat version of "Stairway to Heaven" out on the crowd:

Anyway:  Roman baths, very cool things indeed.  They are crowded, but I waited until later in the afternoon and the tour buses had cleared out and it left a more leisurely crowd.  The audio guide that comes with the price of admission is filled with much wisdom and insight, and walks you through rooms packed full of artifacts and objects found nearby, along with the multi-roomed bath house with the bubbling hot spring running through it.  

My favorite thing:

People would write curses on bits of tin or lead, roll them up and throw them into the spring as a kind of wishing well to the goddess in charge.  Most of them were hilarious: petty and mean, with some reporting a list of suspects of who they are accusing with a theft of clothes or jewelry from the spa, or reporting a perceived slight.

What was refreshing was people seemed truly taken by the place.  It was very low on the whining children quotient.

The spa was quite impressive, with the steam rising off the blue-green waters.  If only they cared to really capitalize and let you take a dip, as all this talk about baths and relaxing in saunas was really starting to make me feel like I needed to be included in this ritual.

I also took a peek inside Bath Abbey, an impressive monument originally built in the 7th century upon a Roman temple.

It's kind of a hike from London, but it wouldn't be a bad place to spend a couple of days, as there are several museums that I didn't even get a chance to see, and lots of cute shops and cafes to relax in.

Oh, and the spas.  How could I have been so stupid as to not hit a spa while I was there?

Next time.

Pamukkale

I squeezed in a whole lot of sites this trip. A product of meticulous planning and a little luck that things would run on time, and a back-up plan if they didn't.

Pamukkale wasn't exactly convenient to anything. It took four separate buses to get there from Fethiye. The long-distance bus to Denizli was a run-down oil burning old monster with hard bench seats, and it stopped along the road every few miles to pick up locals and refill the oil. It was four very long hours. But eh, might as well travel like a local for the authentic experience, even if you are gritting your teeth to stubs the whole ride. It made arriving all the more sweet.

Hierapolis is the ruins of a Greek (and later Roman) holy city atop Pamukkale. A spa town, as it was built up upon the hot springs that flow here. Oh, I do love my spa towns. It was decimated by an earthquake several times, and now it's just scattered ruins. I would have spent much more time there, but the trip was timed on transportation and the sun was directly overhead.

It was incredibly hot and dry there. It was probably the most uncomfortable I was the entire trip as far as the heat was concerned. I couldn't suck down water fast enough.

It was a pretty amazing place though. You could see the sewers lining the ancient streets, an enormous crumbling theater, temples, and bath houses.

Plus, me being me, I took a pretty good spill on a gravel hill (oh, flip flops. How you betray me.) and I ended up spending the next few days picking pebbles out of my hands and knees. I saved the camera though! I usually can't go anywhere without one good mishap that ends up with me on my ass.

There was no shade to be found, so we followed the crowds to the Cotton Castles.

This was some really incredible stuff.

Flowing down a hill, terraces of deposited limestone build up convient little wading pools. True, some of these were definitely encouraged to have higher walls than others. A large number of them are off-limits to languish in their natural state.

But lo, the landscape was blindingly white.

You are allowed to walk barefoot across a series of pools, and you can bask in them and cover yourself with the white-gray mud. While the upper pools were packed with a lot of children and families, if you hike a little further down the hill, the crowds thin out and a more meditative trance-like state occurs as you let the water drip down the cliff onto your head and people are just chilling out in the mud.

I wish we had more time there so we could have seen the sun set. The overhead light and the glare was just too much to get really great shots. I resorted to the "spray and pray" technique as it was impossible to even see the camera meter through the viewfinder in that kind of light.

The water did little to cool you down. It was a hot spring, and while you could find areas that I might classify as being pretty-warm springs, it was so dry and hot, the air would dry off almost immediately, leaving white droplets of calcium baked on your skin.

It was such a weird, ghostly landscape.