Day 14 - Bath

Distance walked: 13km, Alcohol consumed: 1 glass wine

Woke to clear, blue skies but the forecast for today was cool with rain so our first stop was the local Edinburgh Woollen Mill outlet so I could buy a cardigan. I've been rotating my two warmest tops all this last week, washing them in the bathroom sink each night. It was time for a change.

Anyway, before setting out was breakfast. Here each group of guests is assigned individual tables in the dining room. The room was tiny, so it was quite cramped, but thankfully Mary did not feel obliged to make bright conversation when she was just eating with me.

Our first tourist stop today was the Roman Baths. These are spectacular. The complex is only partly uncovered but it is still impressively large. There are free audio guides with almost too much detail. Throughout the complex there are TV screens with short videos showing what the particular part you are in looked like with actors playing small scenes. Some rooms had multiple TVs and each showed the same scene but from the appropriate angle. Very clever. It gave you a good idea of what it must have been like. We tried the waters - dreadful.

After this we headed off to the Assembly Rooms. We got very lucky here. It is the end of a Jane Austen festival here. There are many people wandering around in Regency dress and lots of Jane Austen-themed events going on. There was going to be one at the Assembly Rooms this afternoon so they were closed to the public. However, we arrived just in time for a free tour of the rooms from the upstairs balconies so we got a better view of the rooms than if they had been open.

After touring the Assembly Rooms we visited the Fashion Museum which is downstairs. They only show 100 pieces from the collection at a time, with just key items from each era to give you an idea of how clothing styles have changed. We found this very interesting. Mens' clothing has just become progressively duller and duller. My only complaint about this museum is that clothes from the 1950s onwards were all from the catwalk rather than being typical of each relevant period.  The 50s, 60s and 80s had such distinct styles it was a shame they didn't show what real people actually wore in these decades (well, perhaps not the 80s).

We then headed off for lunch at a small French bistro called Cafe Rouge (which I have since discovered is a chain). I started with a terrine with watercress, chutney and brown bread. This began well until I discovered a small caterpillar in my watercress. They took it away and offered me a replacement but I had rather gone off the idea of eating watercress. They did tell me that that particular container of watercress had been thrown away and the other container washed again, which I thought was good customer service. They also took the cost of my starter off the bill. I think they handled the incident very well. My main was a quiche with salad. The quiche was topped with more watercress. It is the "in" garnish here it seems.

After lunch we walked through the Royal Victoria Park before visiting No 1 Royal Crescent which is a Georgian townhouse that has been furnished and decorated in the original style. Each room had a guide in period costume who was happy to talk (and talk) about each room. What I like the best about this period house is that you get to see the servant quarters too. You definitely wanted to be upper class back then.

We then went to the  Jane Austen centre, but there was an entry fee and no description of what was inside so we just browsed in the shop before leaving for a Sicilian afternoon tea at Cafe Rosario. The coffee here was excellent - as good as Patricia's. We also had three small pastries. One made with almond meal with a black cherry filling (delicious), another which was a crescent of flaky pastry with a pistachio cream filling (good) and a cannoli with a chocolate cream filling (dull - both pastry and filling too thick).

After such a difficult afternoon we decided to be terribly touristy and get on one of those hop on-hop off buses. We took the Skyline tour at least, which took us around the outskirts of Bath so we could get a view of the city skyline and also the surrounding countryside. It takes all of 10 minutes to get back to farmland. Bath does not sprawl.

We headed back to the B&B for a quick wash and to drop off our souvenirs before heading out for dinner. This is when the weather got nasty. It had been clear and mostly sunny all day but it suddenly started to pour. Rain here is instantaneous. It is suddenly pouring and then it just as suddenly stops. Unfortunately it started to pour while we were searching for somewhere to eat so we had to stop at the first place with free tables - a downmarket pizza chain called Pizza Express. We shared some sun dried tomatoes with pizza "dough balls" and garlic butter to start. We then shared a pizza with black olives, buffalo mozzarella, rocket and salami. This should have been good. The topping was very tasty and the base was thin, but sadly it was also not crispy. We also ordered a side salad but our waiter, who assured us he didn't need to write anything down as he had an excellent memory, forgot about it. The service here was odd. At times it was excellent, while at other times it was dreadful. Often by the same waiter. We were going to have dessert but after 15 minutes nobody had taken our order so we just flagged down a passing wait-being and demanded the bill. We didn't leave a tip.

After dinner we went to a show called "More Pride & More Prejudice" at a small local theatre which was part of the Jane Austen festival. It was improvisational theatre and was about Jane Austen trying to think up follow on stories for Mr Bennett, Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Mary Bennett. Actors played each of these three characters as if they were figments of Jane's imagination who wouldn't stop complaining about how she had written about them. The audience was asked to provide suggestions and a couple of audience members were dragged up on stage to play minor parts (Mrs Bennett and Lady Anne). It was fun and the actor who played Jane was excellent, but it really requires the right people in the audience to really work well.

We then headed back to the B&B. It was late-ish on a Saturday night and there were groups of not entirely sober people wandering about. One advantage of being a middle-aged woman is you can walk past a group of drunken young men, secure in the knowledge you will be totally invisible to them.