Day Trip to Bath

A couple of weeks ago I decided to take myself off to Bath in Somerset. I'd been told it's a lovely city, steeped in history, and as it's only a 90 minute train ride from Paddington, I thought I'd treat myself!

A short walk from the train station brought me to the River Avon. The bridge in the background is called Pulteney Bridge and it's only one of four bridges left in the world with shops across the full span on both sides. I didn't get to see it any closer than this, so it's top of my list for the next trip!

My main reason for visiting bath was to see the Roman baths, built by the Romans on the site of the only hot springs in Britain. I like this view from inside the baths as you can also see the Cathedral. (Another thing on my list for next time.)

The bath is lined with 45 sheets of lead and filled withhot spa water.

This is the actual spring. Hot water at 46deg C rises here at the rate of 240,000 gallons (1,170,ooo litres) every day, and has been doing thisfor thousands of years. This is called the Sacred Pool as the Romans believed it was the work of the gods so they built a temple around the spring, dedicated to the goddess Sulis Minerva a deity they believed had healing powers.
In case you didn't know, the Roman name for Bath was Aquae Sulis!

This is a detail from the original temple.

This is the spring overflow. The Roman plumbing and drainage system is still largely in place. Lead pipes were used to carry the hot spa water around the site using gravity flow. Dam clever those Romans!

The spring overflow is where surplus water, not used in the baths flows out into a roman drain. The drain still carries all the spa water to the river Avon 400m away.


There was a lot more to the baths than I have pictures of, but was really interesting.

I wanted to see the famous Pump Room which was regarded as the social heart of Bath for more than 200 years. It figures heavily in most of Jane Austen's wonderful Regency novels. Unfortunately it's now a very expensive restaurant so I didn't get to look inside!

I headed instead to the Assembly Rooms which also feature in Jane Austen's works. They were used in Regency times for dancing, card playing, tea drinking, conversation and generally seeing and being seen. Now of course they are just big empty rooms, but I just liked this reflection of one of the beautiful chandeliers.

Last stop before finding food and coming home was the world famous Royal Crescent, a stunning piece of Georgian architecture. There are 30 houses in the Crescent, one of which is now the Royal Crescent Hotel (very expensive!), and Number 1 is open to the public. (another for next time!) I was just a bit disappointed with the Crescent cos it looks like it could do with a good clean, it looks a bit dingy!! Sorry the pic is so narrow... it's a panorama I stitched together from 4 individual shots.

That was my last stop, and I wandered back into the town centre doing a bit of window shopping along the way! The shops are gorgeous, little and boutique-y, and expensive!!

A nice meal on the terrace at Garfunkels completed my day! I shall go back again soon when hopefully there will be fewer tourists about!!

Travels in Europe Part 2

Ok, to continue.....

A few more pics of Venice....




St Mark's square

The High altar in St Mark's Cathedral

St Mark's Cathedral was much smaller than I'd expected, and they made you keep walking round, you weren't allowed to sit down or explore at your leisure. Photography was not allowed, but as you see I sneaked one from waist level!

Grand Canal

Again, this was just how I'd pictured it! If you disregard the modern boats and shops etc, it's easy to imagine how it was when Canaletto painted it.

More gondolas awaiting customers!

Bridge of Sighs.

Much smaller and more insignificant looking than I'd expected, not helped by the fact that the buildings on either side are being renovated!

The trip back to the campsite was as relaxing as the outward journey. We stopped for a couple of beers in Chioggia and people-watched for a whilebefore going back to the campsite for the evening's entertainment and more beer!

Day 4 Saturday.

After all the sightseeing and beer drinking of yesterday, we decided to have a quiet day, so we wandered into Chioggia, had coffee and lunch and explored a bit, before going back for the Parade of Nations. This is where all the bikes gather behind their respective national flags and do a mass ride into and around the town.It's always great fun, much hooting of horns and waving of flags and all the townsfolk and tourists come out to watch and wave back! Unfortunately I didn't get any pics of it!! Sorry!

Day 5 Sunday.

It took us ages to get packed up and ready to roll! It was incredibly hot and humid even at 6 am and the slightest movement had us drenched in sweat!

Eventually we were sorted and said our goodbyes to friends old and new, some of whom we would see the following weekend in Austria.

Our original plan had been to ride straight to Austria, but we changed our minds and decided that it would be nice to visit Slovenia for a day or two

The first thing we noticed was how green a country it is! Despite the heat, nothing was turning brown and crispy like it does here! we found a terrific campsite just outside the capital, Ljubljana...lots of shade, a nice bar and restaurant and best of all a brilliant toilet block (no portaloos!!)

Days 6 and 7.

We spent the next 2 days exploring Ljubljana.....

River Sava

Ljubljana castle

Fantastic view from the Castle

Day 8. Lubljana to Salzburg.

A 4 hour ride took us through the mountains and into Austria. After a slight hiccup with directions we found the village of Hallwang and the Treffen site. Camping was in a huge field with not a shady tree in sight! The rest of the treffen sight, where the food, showers and entertainment were, was a 5 minute walk away!

We decided to walk into the village that evening as the Treffen didn't officially start till the following day. We found some friends from Italy there and hate a very pleasant dinner accompanied by plenty of beer and good "craic" as the irish call it!

Day 9.

Woke up feeling like I needed a new hip! Our airbed had completely deflated during the night, and the ground underneath it was decidedly lumpy! It was decided that it wasn't fixable, so we rode out into the local area to see if we could find ashop to get anew one. Luckily we found a camping shop not too far away and bought a new airbed, plus a new chair, as the one I'd been using had collapsed in Italy! (Remarks were made about the weight it had had to bear!!)

As it was such a hot day we spent the afternoon and evening in the bar area chatting with friends.

Day 10.

Spent the day in Salzburg. Saw as many of the sightsaswe could. My previous visit to that city was in 1963 but it was much as I remembered it!

River Salzach

An interesting sculpture! That's a statue on the top, not a

real person!

Salzburg's most famous son, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart!

Ooops, posted same pic twice.... I'll remove it when I've figured out how!

Fortress Hohensalzburg

We took a ride on the funicular up to the fortress. Beautiful views from up there, and lots to see and do too.

View from the top!

Day 11.

Another very hot day, so we set off to find a lake for a swim! Over lunch in a lovely litlle Gasthof, we got talking to some people from Vienna and they said that the temperatures for the following week were going to be in the region of 38 to 40C! After hearing that we thought that maybe we wouldn't carry on to the Czech Treffen, as camping in that heat with no shade would be just a bit too much for both of us!

I had my swim, wonderfully refreshing, and a snooze under a shady tree!

The evening's entertainment proved to be great fun! A bit of traditional Austrian dancing, then 5 guys in traditional costume chopping logs in time to music!! The guy nearest us was very enthusiastic in his chopping and we got covered in wood chips!

Days 12 and 13.

Time to pack up and hit the road again! we motored on through Germany, and stopped for the night in a hotel near Ludwigshafen. it was a bit more expensive than we'd have liked, but after 2 weeks in a tent, a bit of luxury didn't go amiss!!

The last day saw us stopping in Luxembourg for cheap tobacco, and arriving in Calais by 6.30p. I wasn't too happy about having to fork out another €30 just cos we were changing our booking, especially as it was an open return!

Anyway, that's my travels in Europe by motorbike!!