Bath, England

Posted on December 30, 2023  •  13 minutes  • 2664 words

When planning where to stay/what to do in the UK before heading to Edinburgh, Dan mentioned staying in youth hostels. Note: This was the day before when we were in London and didn’t have a place to stay the next night yet. I have stayed at my fair share of hostels and know they have their ranges, but it just wasn’t on my radar for this trip for some reason. He brought up the YHA UK website and just starts flashing cool place after cool place we could stay. With Finnish visa stuff up in the air, we were holding off booking much, but finally we were running out of time. We knew we wanted to head to Wales, but didn’t want a big drive the first day out of London. Looking at the YHA map view, we clicked on Bath, because why not? The place looked amazing and it checked the boxes…availability and en route to Wales. We booked a family en suite room and were set to go. It couldn’t have been better. There were at least 4 other families with kids around the same age, big communal kitchen, restaurant, tons of games and wide open spaces for the kids to run around.

Reflecting back on Bath, I told Dan how lucky I felt that we had a year to do this trip. Had we planned a 2-3 week trip to the UK, we would have never have given Bath a thought. Too many other things to see, right? Our 3 days there (yeah we ended up extending a night) were pure magic.

Our room was a bit small for all of us and luggage, but it worked out very well. We dumped our bags and went to the common area to start checking out all the games. Ben is on a chess kick right now, so we started with that. Pulling up to the place.

Didn’t do much the first night…ate at the restaurant there (not great food), played more games and put the kids in bed. The one big draw back was that we were in a building behind the main building, so we didn’t really feel okay leaving the kids there and going to the common area for a drink. No worries though, lots of time to catch up on my website writing.

Still loving the sleeping in, even with us all in the same room. Dan got up to get groceries and by the time he was back, we were up dressed and walked to meet him in the kitchen. Yogurt, oats and bananas are a staple in our house, especially with traveling. Actually, in Arizona we always did it with granola, but we’ve found that oats are just as yummy (different, but still yummy) and even easier.

Kids scarfed it down, so they could go outside and play. No video, but they were literally running loops around the main building with their new friends.

We were about a 20 minute walk up from the town with great views from our place. I wrangled them for a photo, note the lack of jackets at this point.

Devastated they had to stop playing to head into the town, but we promised they could play when we got back. The weather was supposed to not rain in the morning and start around 2pm. They can play in the rain; I prefer not to walk around in the rain if possible. We headed down, now with jackets as I was not trusting my weather app.

After a couple blocks on the main road, we found some side ’trails’ that would take us there and dump us pretty close to where we thought we’d start the day.

Any place that has terraced gardens usually scores high on my list. Add to that a canal below and small paths everywhere, I was really liking Bath so far.

We walked along this canal for a bit, adults avoiding as much mud as possible, kids really testing out their boots. They LOVE that they can go pretty deep in and still stay dry. Just waiting for them to cross the threshold.

After a very pleasant walk, we got to the Pulteney Bridge. The water was SO high! In the kitchen at our hostel, there is a picture from this same view point and it shows the water a 4-5 below the bottom of the fence on the other side. The fence is not half way submerged.

We took our time here as it was quite mesmerizing watching the water and staring at the bridge beyond. And we got a family photo of us all!

If the bridge wasn’t cool enough on aesthetics alone, it got even more points having shops above. We got pastries and coffee at the cafe with a view down below.

I saw ‘gardens’ on my map and wanted to head there. We stood above it and realized it would just be a muddy mess to walk around, so we took a photo and headed to the Roman baths.

Dan did a quick pit stop to get me a new screen protector for my phone and a cable he needed. Ben, Sam and I found a giant church (or cathedral) by the entrance to the baths. We couldn’t go in since there was a service, but we could stand in front of the giant doors and take a photo.

Entrance fee paid and we were ready to go. I feel like this is a UK thing, as I have noticed it at each place that has an entry fee, that there is a family ticket. It includes 2 adults and 3 kids and saves usually the fee for 1-2 kids. Maybe it’s in the US too, but I just haven’t been going to enough places that would have that as an option. Need to bump up my museum and historical site visits when we get back. Anyways, you walk in and immediately see this view.

We were all armed with audio guides, but there were almost too many numbers to punch in to listen too. There were 4 different options…one that was info, one narrated by Bill Bryson (from Iowa Dan pointed out) with commentary, one for kids and another one. I did the kids one a lot so I could hear what they were listening to and then talk with them after about it. I also did some adult ones and not a huge difference on the ones I heard. Max feels a bit too special with his own ‘phone’.

You are right around the main bath, yet you are also right in the city. Right over the walls is just normal life going about. With all the water, statues, grandeur, etc. you kind of feel that you should be a bit more remote…in let’s say ‘a spa setting’.

The kids were given scavenger hunt papers with pictures of about 10 things they had to find. Again, not sure if this is everywhere, but we were seeing kid activities in places like this in the UK and Belgium.

So yes, Bath got it’s name from the Roman baths that were there about 2000 years ago, heated by the only natural hot spring in the UK. We learned a lot listening, but it’s always the visual things that stick with the kids and myself. I found it fascinating how many Roman coins were found. Bags and bags of them! They made a cast of some of the original bags and the state they were in when they found them so you could touch it.

We could see one of the areas where the hot water was diverted, to then be diverted again to the pools. The water is actually clear, the rock has been stained over the years. Just putting your hand over the water (5ft up), you could feel the heat.

We were now down around the lower large pool. Was I worried a kid would accidentally or ‘accidentally’ fall in? Yes. Not as paranoid as I was in Yellowstone with the hot water there, which could actually kill you, but still worried. I don’t think the pool was actually warm/hot, but it brought back the fears from Yellowstone.

There were channels and channels of water flowing every which way. I’d love to see the water flow chart for how it’s all laid out and how much of x water gets mixed with y water to get the right temperature.

We continued to the underground area. Saw other baths (or large pools as the kids were now calling them), saunas and even got to taste the water! It was disgusting, but the Romans believed it was healing. Ben nailed it when he said it smelled like warm pool water. The kids turned in their scavenger hunts and got a certificate of achievement. We barely skirted out of the gift shop with the kids wanting everything and Dan got right to searching for a restaurant. The first one was TOO popular and on the way to the second, we passed a Moroccan restaurant and could smell the amazing-ness from outside. We decided to go in. Great choice! Everything was delicious and in true Aukes family fashion, we needed more yogurt sauce.

Sam and Dan headed home, as Sam had built up some timeout minutes and the rest of us took the long way home past the grocery store. We got stuck in a downpour and got to walk along the canal again. This time with double the mud it seemed. Max is constantly checking the waterproofness of his boots…constantly when presented with a puddle, river or lake.

I had to stop caring and instead enjoyed the lovely terraced gardens. One of the things that brings me so much joy to see. I can’t explain how much I love them.

Grocery shopping done, backpack bursting at the seams since I refused to waste a plastic bag and we walked the last bit back to our hostel. Sam was just finishing up his writing and Ben went right for the chess board. In the back of this picture, you can see the water level of the river on a normal day and how the fence is not at all in the water, as it was in our photo.

Yes, it was New Year’s Eve, but as usual these days, we were pretty tired. And with our building being not attached to the main building, we didn’t want to leave the kids to have a drink in the common area. We were in bed by 8:30pm. It wasn’t actually that bad, I did stay up until 10:30pm.

There was a huge storm during the night and a tree fell on part of the building. Kids clearly thought this was cool and were devastated that I was going to make them go to town with me, instead of watching the crew take it down.

Part of the way I got them to finally leave, is I said I would go with them the ‘secret’ way. It was a path they had found exploring the day before with their friends there.

Pretty much the same walk as the day before because the kids wanted to check out the river level compared to the day before and the only thing on my list was to see some Georgian architecture. A couple feet higher!

I wanted a coffee and deep down am a creature of habit, so we went back to the cafe on the bridge. Max was being a stinker and I told him that if he didn’t turn it around I was going to take a bite of his chocolate croissant. You can guess what happened?

We swung by an outdoors store so I could get a pair of waterproof shoes (light hikers) then we walked up to The Circus. I explained to the kids on the way that it wasn’t a real circus, but named this because ‘circus’ in Latin means ‘circle’ or ‘ring’ and the houses are arranged in a giant ring. It was quite a sight as it was a huge circle.

And a tree positioned perfectly in the center.

Lots of concrete columns and faces on the facade of the buildings. We could tell the rain was going to come and to be honest, we had 100% lucked out with the weather so far. Clear mornings/early afternoons and rain at night. Much welcomed as my weather app had 100% rain for 8 days in a row. Heading back, Dan called and asked how we were doing as he was at a good point to stop work. I said we’d be at the grocery store soon if he wanted to meet us there. Kids loved the carts that were just their size. Within 2 minutes, they each had one.

Made it back, did some school, played some games and made dinner. Hummus, veggies, bread, avocado and cheese…a complete hit. Oh and chili for Dad.

After dinner, the kids were loving playing chess with their friends. At one point a boy says ‘how about all of us vs Ben?’ ‘Yeah!!!’ Screamed another. Humble Ben gave me a slight smile. Dan and I opted for a couple beers with dinner this night as we had some visa issues looming over us…mainly, finish filling out the Finnish (hehe) applications online and make sure we were answering all the questions correctly. It’s amazing how much stress is was causing and we weren’t even doing anything wrong. It was hard to pull the kids away from playing and I was enjoying adult conversation with someone other than Dan, but it was getting late and we had a long drive the next day.

The kids had begged to do the breakfast that the hostel serves and we had told them the last day. Made sense as it would be easy for the day we’d be packing up. All packed up to finally leave at 10am, we were moving slow and the kids did school work. This was not really the plan as the drive was 4 hours according to google, but the rain was relentless and roads were flooded. We seemed to be getting on okay so far and we crossed into Wales!

But I do kind of look like I’m getting the hang of this ‘driving on the wrong side of the road’ thing.

And I wanted to stop and get the kids waterproof pants. I had liked the place I went to in back, Mountain Warehouse and we found one on our route. We spent way too much time in there (Dan’s fault), but we left with what we needed. It was now lunch time, so instead of just grabbing fast pastries at a bakery, we decided to stay for lunch. Best call ever as the food was amazing. It was now 1:30pm and we had 3 hours to go, so that wasn’t the best idea.

But when a cafe has plants hanging all over the walls, it just has to be good.

We drove through the cutest towns and past so much greenness that went on forever.

Even had the sun peak through for a whole 30 minutes before it went back to constant rain the rest of the drive.

Not a fun drive as I was worried about giant puddles and not hitting the curb, but the few glimpses I allowed myself to take were beautiful to look at. Zigzagging through hills, dense trees on each side, stone walls, hills going on and on. Dan did a terrible job of documenting it. I wish I wasn’t the driver. The kids started a game of counting waterfalls. Within 20 minutes they were at 34. Even bend in the road had a river gushing down and then some big ones too. This was a big part of the drive…

We pulled up to our Airbnb in the dark, found the key straight away and headed in for dinner.