May 12: Saturday was Bath (England) day!

Saturday our plan was to get up early, go to Lacock Abby, then continue on to see the major sites of Bath.  Unfortunately, we got a later start than planned, as everyone had a bath this morning. Lacock Abby doesn’t open until 10:00, and we knew from previous experience that it is 20 minutes from Tetbury, so we didn’t feel too badly about our 9:50 start, especially since we had managed to see all of Gloucester in an afternoon. 

Unfortunately, we had reckoned without the Saturday traffic.  We sat through two traffic lights, 100 yards apart, for over an hour in the midst of an unending stream of cars.  We were sure there was an accident on the road!  I missed a turn by getting in the wrong lane at a traffic circle, much to Ian’s chagrin, I am sure, because he has traffic circles down pat, and discovered that the traffic was jammed everywhere.  We had planned to leave the car at a Park and Ride, but programmed in the wrong one, so I had to drive right through the centre of Bath to leave the car on the other side!  We took the bus into town, then bought expensive tickets on the Hop-On-Hop-Off bus and toured around once.  The tickets were expensive, but we thought it would be faster than walking with our elderly mothers. 

We rode the bus around most of the circle.  It was very interesting to see Austen’s gravel walk, the lovely Georgian townhouses, and the Circle.  We made plans to see the Austen Museum and the Georgian Museum, as well as Bath Cathedral, and the Assembly Rooms, but decided to start with the Roman Baths.

Margaret and Alanna on the bus!

The circle, and the green in the middle.  The Georgian houses are behind.

The church of which Reverend Austin, Jane's father, was rector.

The Crescent.  The Georgian Museum is at number 1.

The Roman Baths are  among the most visited tourist attractions in Britain, and they were packed!  We had to queue to get in, and to Ian’s frustration, weren’t buying our tickets for the first stop of the day until 3:30 in the afternoon!

The baths are more Victorian than Roman in feel, at least to us, but are well laid out and we got the audioguide to help us interpret what we were seeing as well.  There were a lot of sites that we had to wait in line to see, and most of the rooms of the baths are located in basement rooms and in very low lighting.  It didn’t quite have the atmosphere of a romantic ruin, but it was quite educational. 

We then followed the map given to us at the Baths to head up to the Assembly Rooms.  In retrospect, we could have jumped back on the bus, and spared Dorothy and Beverley the three block walk up a steep street.  As we didn’t, we had some tuckered ladies by the time we got to the Assembly Rooms.  The actual Assembly and Ball Rooms were closed for a wedding, which we had seen from the bus, but we got a chance to see the Fashion Museum.  Highlights for me included some gowns from the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries; muslin gowns from the 1810’s; crinolines and other undergarments; and a dress worn by Queen Victoria.  It was also a lot of fun dressing Alanna up in Victorian clothes!  Beverley and Dorothy liked the more modern costumes, and picked out outfints that were similar to dresses they had once owned.

Ian in a frock coat.

Alanna in her underwear.

We got back on the the Hop-On-Hop-Off bus, which was on it’s last run of the day, and got to the Cathedral ten minutes before closing – not enough time to go inside, or do anything else.  

 I stupidly led everyone to the wrong shopping centre, where we did NOT catch the bus, and then had to backtrack for a long distance, by which time both of the maternal relatives were worn to nubs.  However, once we found the right stop and got back on the bus, we whisked off to Lacock Abby – Alanna has seen it closed twice now – and had a fabulous meal in the Red Lion Pub there.

We plan to get an early start tomorrow, and see if we can’t do a repeat of today, except that we hope to actually get to Lacock Abby in open hours, see the museums in Bath, and not kill our moms with walking.  Good thing our the Hop-On-Hop-Off bus tickets are good for twenty-four hours!