A Breath of Fresh Air, and a Glass of Hot Water

I have a confession to make.


For the past month, maybe two, I have been dying to get out of London. It might seem a shock, given the weekly valentines I pen to it on this website, but lately I have been desperate to go somewhere, anywhere, else. It isn't that the magic is gone in my London love affair, it was just that after three months of complete exclusivity, we needed a break from each other. I needed to take a breather.

Luckily my attention span for people is better than for cities. So when Andy suggested a weekend trip to Bath, a small English city about two hours out of London, I was thrilled. As the train burrowed out of the congested frantic streets of London into bright and open countryside I could feel the tension lifting from my shoulders. Everything outside my window was so sunny and green and vibrant. I know it was sunny (and vibrant) in town too, but the clouds that were clearing were in my mind.

Bath is probably the most pleasant looking city I've ever seen. Everything in this small English city was pretty and quaint and photogenic. The uniform pale limestone Georgian style buildings, the sparkling river Avon which winds through a plush green park and the panorama of hills that surround the town are completely perfect, like some sort of imaginary movie village.

What makes Bath more then just another pretty English face is the water. Steaming, sulphurous mineral water bubbles up from the soil here to form three natural hot springs. In 43 AD, when London was just a fishing village, the conquering Romans happened upon the springs and built an elaborate bathing facility and temple to the Goddess Minerva. They had no scientific means of explaining hot water pouring out of the earth, to them this was a miraculous site of healing.

Once the Romans took off, the temple fell into disrepair, was gradually forgotten and buried under new buildings during the Middle Ages, while a towering Cathedral- a tribute to an entirely different religion, sprung up mere yards away. By the 1700's Bath was hip again, an elite resort town for the aristocracy. The wealthy flocked to Bath for the supposed curative powers of it's waters, and for the budding social scene. In the 1900's the Roman ruins were accidentally rediscovered, excavated and made into a museum. Bath's primary industry nowadays is tourism, and the entire city is a UNESCO world heritage site.

We spent a lot of time wandering the pretty streets of the city, eating scrumptiously fattening foods and trying to avoid the biting wind which marred the otherwise perfectly sunny weekend. The City of Bath offers a fabulous free walking tour, but it costs a ridiculous amount to get into any of the many museums scattered about the city. The only one really worth the money is the Roman Baths, which are well preserved and presented. There is also a free audio tour, starring my favorite American/pseudo-British travel writer Bill Bryson, so I was happy.

At the end of the tour you can throw a coin into one of the hot baths, supposedly for luck. Then you have an opportunity for a real test of courage- drinking a glassful of the natural spa water. Served uncomfortably warm, the water naturally contains 43 different minerals. It smells like rotten eggs and tastes...well... if you hold your nose it's not that terrible. The Georgians believed that two pints a day was the key to good health. I have doubts that I could get down two pints of the stuff, but we ought to get some credit for both finishing our glasses. It sure tasted evil enough to be healthy.

Good luck and good health, two things which seem to be finally (hopefully!) back on my side.