Bath-time: prepare for the unexpected.

               

                   With its long rows of graceful Georgian townhouses and neatly landscaped parks, it would be easy to dismiss Bath as a rather stuffy and patrician place. Unlike its near neighbour, Bristol, there is little sign of urban decay or ill-fitting post-war construction - at first sight, the city looks like it has been preserved in aspic, Disneyland for Jane Austen enthusiasts.

              Most of its major attractions – the Roman baths, the Crescent and Circle, the Assembly rooms, the museum of Bath architecture, the fashion museum – invite you to see how life was at a time when the city was awash with money and inhabited by scene-setting aristocrats like its most famous inhabitant, Beau Nash.

                But on further inspection, one quickly realises that Bath, while never gritty, is a vibrant, friendly place and a perfect location for ‘pottering about’.  As well as a wide variety of cafes that don’t just sell cream teas, there is a plethora of excellent charity shops, the best of which, Dorothy House Hospice, has a stack of records and a blue-tiled ‘listening booth’ with record player, armchair and curtain. On a similarly quirky note, there are good photo ops to be had at the display window of Broad Street Studio tattoo parlour, where two knit-hatted skeletons wave at passers-by from a vintage Volkswagen camper van.  Just up the road is Topping and Co., a warm and welcoming shop stuffed with books and staffed by enthusiastic people; regular author visits are advertised  on a blackboard outside.  

                 A short walk from the centre will take you to two richly atmospheric pubs – The Star Inn on Vineyards with its little dark wooden rooms, ale served from a barrel and resident cat, and the somewhat cooler and more rustic Bell Inn on Walcot Street.  Famous for its status as a cooperative owned by  518 customers (including Van Morrison and Robert Plant), The Bell is worth visiting for its excellent music alone. There was some brilliant sixties reggae in the main bar on the Thursday I visited, while the back room was taken over by The Smoking Duck playgroup, a highly entertaining open mic event hosted by the very funny Laurie Duckworth.  

People whose visits to England rarely get past chilly London may be surprised by the friendliness of the locals and the easy pace of this small city (and the large number of homeless people) and Salisbury, Stonehenge and Bristol are all less than hour away (though I wouldn’t recommend travelling to Bristol by car – the greater area is choked with traffic).  Like the Bath cake itself (a bun with a sugar cube in the middle of it) this city is full of surprises.