Lovely, lovely day. The forecast last night was for rain, but that changed this morning and we were told that after a dull start we'd have clouds and sunny intervals - so we headed off at midday for Temple Meads (Kai decided yesterday he wanted to go on a train...) Both journeys were on Intercity 125s, alas: we were hoping for the slower Alphaline trains so we could enjoy the scenery a little more, but can't be helped.
Pulteney Bridge. ->
One of only three mediaeval bridges in Europe with shops on them (one of the others is the Ponte Vecchio in Florence - I have a photo of that taken from a window of the
Uffizi Gallery, but the scanner's not installed yet so can't post the pic - the other one I can't remember!)
The original intention was to go to the Antique Market and several second-hand bookshops, but as we came out of Parade Gardens Kai spotted the open-topped City Tour buses and pleaded to go on one...
<- looking away from Pulteney Bridge along Parade Gardens.
Well, I'd said earlier today it's good to be spontaneous on occasion... and actually it's not such a bad deal, £9.50 for two tours (for me: Kai went free, though that might have been because it's autumn, and the visitor trade has dropped off, and the buses weren't very busy...) City and Skyline, which goes up to Bath University and has gorgeous views out over the valley and the city. No photos though, I'm afraid. One of the beauties of Bath is its vegetation - which unfortunately, or not depending on your pov, tends to get in the way of the camera and leave you with the most tantalising glimpses of the beautiful place between the trees. And the bus was travelling quite fast. I did manage to get this though, as we were heading up towards the Uni -
If I remember rightly, that's Widcombe Crescent up on the right, unusual in that it was built with its back (the façade you can just about make out) to the city: all of the other crescents face the city, including the Royal Crescent. Apparently Johnny Depp has just bought two of the houses there. Seems there's a half-Olympic sized swimming pool in the sub-basement of one of them. Unless our tour guide was joking.
[sigh] Depp aside, I love
Bath, it's one of my favourite cities...
We didn't have time to do anything more, the tours took two hours, and I really didn't fancy trying to get on the X39 back from Temple Meads in the rush hour. But we both thoroughly enjoyed it, even if it
was a little cold on the top of the bus, in October, in a t-shirt and sandals...
Purely off at a tangent, I've just eaten a nuked
Ginsters Chicken and Mozzarella bake, and it was most delicious, hot and spicy and wonderfully comforting on a cold night. I do
like Ginsters products.
#
Joules *Dances with Haddock* Taylor
pontificated this at 12:07 am
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