Wanna Take a Bath?

When I first started planning to take trips to England, I was told that there were 3 cities that I had to visit; London, York, and Bath.  And now that I was on my eighth trip, I finally made plans to take a side trip to Bath.  So Dave and I got on the road and after figuring out English detour signs when the closed the highway (boy that was fun), we made it down it to this historic city in time for a quick lunch.  Dave scouted out a parking spot close to the hotel (a key commodity in English cities), and we headed to Lamb and Lion for a bite to eat.  I enjoyed a Bath Gem ale on cask with the burger meal deal (the deal being you got a decent beer with a crappy burger, live and learn) while we waited until we could check in.  No worries, we timed it well enough to check in and then we headed out on the town.

The way I like to explore a new city is to do something with some history, and then find some top CAMRA recommended pubs as we walked around the city.  So Bath is known for the Roman Baths (http://www.romanbaths.co.uk/), one of the top 3 Heritage sites (the others being the Tower of London and Edinburgh Castle) with artifacts that date back to first century.  They’ve actually gone to great lengths to try to recreate what the baths may have looked like back in those times, sharing how the culture operated and showing the actual artifacts under the building structure.  The water seeps up through the rocks and is already hot, and it run into a series of pools, although they said a dozen times not to touch water due to bacteria (hope the drinking water at the end was treated!).  I love the audio guide that was provided, giving you some facts at a steady pace, allowing you to go as slow or fast as you like through the site.  It was a good tour, a memorable place to visit, but we were getting thirsty so the pub crawl portion of the visit was about to begin.

The first place we found claimed to be the smallest pub in Bath, Coeur De Lion (http://www.coeur-de-lion.co.uk).  It sure seemed that way, with all the patrons sitting outside and enjoying the sunshine.  Dave and I split a pair of beers from Abbey Ales from Bath; their flagship beer Bellringer which is a hoppy (at least for UK standards) amber ale at 4.2% ABV, and the more malty Chorister which was at 4.5% ABV.  It was a great start, but we were enjoying getting the lay of the land through the different Bath alleyways.  We popped into a place that was off-list, Volunteer Riflemans Arms (cool name) since it looked like it had character and would be a cool place to hang out.  Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.  The bartender insisted on us selling us a different beer than what I requested (I didn’t relent) and then would serve us a half pint and poured us a full pint (I did relent).  He said it was Friday night and we could handle it.  What I decided I could handle was moving on to a better pub.  And we found it, my personal favorite in Bath was the Raven (http://www.theravenofbath.co.uk/).  We shared a decent Ploughman’s, a Blindman Bitter and a Hopback Dragon’s Breath (the way I felt after the raw onion), and great conversation with the locals.  A stop by the Salamander was productive for my beer list with a couple more Bath brewing beers (Bounders and Summer Hare).

We then headed outside of town for some sightseeing, taking a look at the Circus and the Royal Crescent.  I’m not quite sure of the significance of these two areas, except the buildings were shaped in an arc around the roadway.  We walked over to the Star (http://www.star-inn-bath.co.uk/), a great pub on the edge of town where I paid tribute to my buddy Len with a pickled egg (done by the chief steward of the Bath Freemasons League) and a Theakston’s Lightfoot Bitter.  We travelled around the corner to the Bell Inn (http://www.thebellinnbath.co.uk/), a different kind of pub with loud American rock n’ roll and fine English ales, including a Yeonl POSH (Port Over Starboard Home?).  It was getting late so we headed back into the center of town for dinner, stopping at the Pig & Fiddle and the Old Green Tree on our way for a pizza (English burgers, not so good.  However, English pizza ‘tis tasty!). We wrapped up the evening at the Garricks Head, where we enjoyed our favorite drink to order for the week, a somerset Pheasant Plucker (say that 5x real fast!) cider.  That was a pretty good day!

The next morning I got up with the sun and walked along the River Avon and downtown watching the city wake up.  This is my favorite time of day in a new town (although there are no open pubs) since there is no traffic and crowds and you really get an opportunity to explore.  I was thankful for the opportunity to see something somewhere new, and to share the experience with a friend. – 6324/13986

 
“In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is freedom, and in water there is bacterium.” – Benjamin Franklin