In 2001, I had a plan of visiting a friend in New York, with a British Airways flight stopping over in London. Then, 9/11 happened, and all flights to New York were cancelled for almost three weeks, leading to my first ever out-of-the-blue backpack trip through England. I had visited the UK before that, London mainly, but that time I had three weeks to roam around, and so without any sense of direction or what’s out there I headed down south, to Brighton, Portsmouth, Isle of Wight, Southampton, New Forest, Salisbury, and then back up north towards Bristol, Bath, Stratford-upon-Avon, Oxford and back to London to catch my flight, with many funky stops on the way. I haven’t done much in the UK since, and so the recent visit to Bath was a treat, to try and see how much I would remember 15 years later.
I must admit that I had very fond memories of Bath, but that in my revisit it failed to leave a strong impression. Maybe it’s that I’ve done so much since, and have come to know Europe better, perhaps it was the gloomy day, or the big tourist crowd on the weekend I was visiting. Still, there’s no denying the Bath charm. It’s a lovely small town with some remarkable history, and it’s got hotsprings, some would say the -original- hotpsrings, that made ‘bath’ synonymous with, well, “bathing”. It’s a tourist spot that you just have to go visit if you’re in the area. To complement the tourist mecca feel, there’s also a very lively student community with an international vibe with the wonderful University of Bath nearby.
Here’s a taste of my revisit to Bath…
Location:
Do visit if you’re in the area, and make sure to explore the old town and especially pop in to see the famous old Roman baths.