Sunday, February 11, 2007

Bath


I went to Bath today. My original intention was to go there the week before Christmas but then I decided to go to Oxford instead. And then I was going to go after Christmas but it was really cold outside. So I went today.


The first thing that struck me when I got off the train was that I remembered how to get to Bath Abbey from the train station. And then I was surprised and how many other random places were familiar. Perhaps what was stranger was that so many of the more well-known sites, such as the archy bits, were not so familiar. So I walked around a bit and actually went into the abbey because I hadn't been before. I did refrain from going to the baths again, but did a quick sweep of the gift shop.


So Bath was really cute. One thing I really enjoyed was the fact that, aside from the cute rows of buildings and cute little alleys, they had non-chain stores. And cute ones at that. Most of these towns have all the same random English chains that are no particular deal in Southampton, let alone when you see them 200 times all over the place. But this place had lots of cute shops and little restaurant places. Like, I would go there again just to go shopping. I took a little stroll along the river Avon, which has some cute scenery but was overwhelmingly brown. It started to look like imminent rain so I bolted for the train station relatively early (3:15), but could have easily spent more time looking at the shops. And then the train was 45 minutes late anyways. The announcer lady was 'extremely sorry for the severe delay'. Normally they are just 'sorry for the delay'. Nice to know they can step it up a notch when need be. I wonder how late a train will have to be before they start passing out hot chocolate.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wow--it looks as if the weather was decent when you took your picture. I remember quite well the horizontal rain the last time we were there. Maybe we can go to Bath again on Monday, April 2. You had me at the cute shops. Also, I didn't see much of the bridge last time.