May 28th -Recce of Bath, Canal discovery

Our first full day in Bath. 

We wandered through the Henrietta Gardens (very near where we are staying) and admired the fountain, pond and unusual flowers.

We walked past Laura Place with its cute fountain

 and started our impromptu self guided tour of Bath.  We were loosely following a map in one of the books in our holiday place

by walking down the stairs on the far left of the picture below.

This is what we actually did...

  Believe it or not- this is the Pulteney Bridge (which has shops on both sides of it so you cannot see the water)

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picture from the water side of the bridge so that you can see the shop windows looking out over the water. 

 We followed along the footbath by the river for a bit and then walked up some stairs inside the pillar (you can just see the arch on the far left that you have to turn before)  up on to the bridge shown below.  Please excuse the strange colours - I accidentally applied a retro filter to the camera.

Just after the bridge you could look down into the Parade Gardens with this cute bandstand.

I liked the musical notations on the bandstand surround. 

 We had to walk past Sally Lunn's place (the oldest shop in Bath) but we didn't stop there to eat.

 We walked past the Roman bath but didn't stop to look as we didn't have Thom with us.

 The Abbey comes off of the same square.

 We walked up a number of streets with rows of Georgian mansions lining them on both sides.  Initially these were all holiday houses for society visitors.

The Circus has three curved rows of houses (30 in all from groups of 10, 12 and 8 houses) with roads dividing them and a lovely park in the centre which now has large trees growing in it. There are 5 levels on each house - ground floor is below the ground level (at the original ground level) , with first floor at the level of the street. Servants would initially have been in the very top and bottom of the houses with the masters sandwiched between. These , as many of the Georgian houses were designed by John Wood and his son (also John Wood) in a special Palladian style- following strict rules to ensure that they appeared pleasant to the eye and were attractive to the gentry.

lovely carvings above the first floor level

the lower (ground) level 

 We continued around a little to the Royal Crescent.  A semi- circle of 30 houses. Very posh, with a private lawn out the front.

we were quite impressed by the fig tree trained to grow on this section 

 We continued on our way, heading back towards the centre of town via Royal Victoria Park.

excellent climbing tree

 We stopped for icecream and found some available for dogs!!

We shopped on the way home for the ingredients for tea (including some wine) , except we forgot the basil.

We were home for a bit of R and R before we decided it was just about tea time and Trev and I went out to find basil if possible. We took a more adventurous and interesting way to the closest shop, bought the last pack of basil available and decided to have a bit of a look at the canal area on the other side of the supermarket.  

 The water was very still, creating wonderful reflections, and we discovered that there is a series of stepped locks leading down to the river.  We took a bit of a stroll along the path, and stopped to watch a boat making its way up through the lock.

This old chimney used to be part  of the system that pumped water up to the top level of the canal again, but this was stopped many years ago, so the old, ornate chimney stands quietly and watches the passing foot and canal traffic.

Trev and I decided we had better get home soon, so we walked on home with our shopping, with only one bit of false start, when we came to a dead end behind some apartments. It was a bit late for tea, but it was fun to discover a hidden treasure of Bath.