No one tells you about the Pigs...

While preparing for a trip to Bath, any diligent guidebook peruser reads about the Sally Lunn Bath Bun, the Thermae bath spa, the Bath Abbey, the Royal Crescent, and Pulteney Bridge. While visiting Bath today, I experienced all of the above. But that's not all I experienced. What those guidebook authors don't tell you about are the decorative statue pigs. Pigs covered in shiny jewels, pigs coated in birch bark layers, pigs painted in black and white swirls. Pigs in the middle of parks and plazas, pigs hanging from trees, pigs floating above shops to help sell wares. My favorite secular pig is featured in the above photo, and my favorite religious pig graces the Abbey courtyard, with the motto "Let them sing" inscribed on its little piggy side. I bet Bath residents like the movie Babe.

When I stepped off the train to Bath, the walk from the railroad did not exactly fill me with pleasant sensations and anticipation. I strode along a fairly dirty and nondescript avenue for a good half mile, but once my expectations had sunk, I emerged into a delightful town center.

Which I quickly left. I spent my morning walking up. Up, up, up. I was hoping that eventually I would get far enough up to get a beautiful picture of Bath from above, sparkling yellow Bath Stone lit by perhaps a chance sunbeam from the cloudy sky. Photographic glory beckoned as I sweated upward through a maze of expensive Suburban houses, each individually named with title like "Abbey View." Unfortunately, they blocked my view. At last I got to the very top of Bath and took the second picture in the series above from a schoolyard. I never did get my grand view, but I did get a lot of good exercise, and a lot of picturesque mini-views of cottages and gardens.

I didn't do many of the touristy things of Bath. I admired the yellow buildings and imagined Jane Austen characters promenading on the very wide sidewalks (to leave room for fancy dresses back when Bath was a playground for the social elite). I walked along the vast historical crescents and tried to capture them in a photo (the first one, above), but they were too big to fit with much visual eloquence. So I opted to do what people have been doing in Bath since the Roman Era. Bathe.

The Thermae Bath Spa is an impressive place, and not only because there are small signs sprinkled liberally throughout the city pointing towards it. I decided to purchase two hours within it, "taking the waters at Bath" like so many who have come before. So, I buckled my identity wristband, used it to key into the main spa area, stashed my things in a locker, and emerged onto the rooftop pool. Incidentally, I did not take the above photo, it's from the spa website. I didn't think people would appreciate me carting around my camera inside the spa. But the rooftop pool really does have pretty great views over downtown Bath, and it really does steam. However, it wasn't as hot as a heat-seeker like me requires. What to do? Turns out the four steam rooms are MUCH hotter. So, I whiled away the early afternoon alternately steaming in Lavender, Eucalyptus, Frankincense, and Mint-infused steam in the four circular glass steam rooms of the Steam Paradise. In between I stepped into the waterfall shower, a true delight, in the middle of the area. As the Thermae website puts it: "A central 'waterfall' shower provides a variety of sensations interspersed with fibre optic lighting: the lightest misting of water or a tropical shower." Seriously. Wow.

As I turned another page of Dubliners on the train, headed for home in Oxford, I found I could understand why generations have flocked to Bath. Though they are delicious, it's not the Sally Lunn Buns. Though it is really really yellow, it's not to admire the mellow bath stone out of which all the buildings are constructed. And though they are incredibly wide, it's not for the sidewalks. We go for the extremely relaxed, slightly dehydrated, altogether pleasant feeling that I was feeling just then.

Day Trip to Brighton

In Pride and Prejudice, Brighton is the town to which Lydia yearns to go, the town where she can flirt with hundreds of soldiers and generally have a great time. Since Jane Austen's time, Brighton has owned the title of England's #1 seaside resort. Yesterday Brett and I found out why.

After a train ride to London, a subway ride across London, and then another train ride into Brighton, we were happy to step out into the barely salty air of Brighton and head for the beach. Along with a few thousand other people! We walked the classic strip, making comparisons to Venice Beach in California (though Brighton is for the whole family - less street performing, more Boat Museums). Soon we cut up into the city in search of Bill's, a hot restaurant tip we found in a magazine about gourmet traveling Brett's sister Brie gave us in June.

After cutting through the grounds of a huge palace, the Brighton Pavilion, long ago designed to look as if it is in India (picture a tiny Taj Mahal in the middle of a bustling beach town), we found our way to perhaps the best restaurant EVER, featured in pictures #2 and #10 above. Bill's is a combination produce store, juice bar, dessert design boutique, brunch restaurant, and magical circus. Brett bought olives from the olive bar to eat in line as we slowly inched along the far side of the delicious insanity that was that large and crowded room. Eventually we were seated upstairs. I had smoothie #1 - Mandarin, Apricot, and Mango with Greek Yoghurt. Then Brett got Spaghetti with the best Garlic bread in the world (we decided "Garlic Bread" was an inappropriate name to give it on the menu, something like "Garlic Dream Slices" would be apter). I had porridge with berries, bananas, chopped up hazelnuts, and maple syrup. Other menu items included high piled English breakfasts, fruit salads with honey and almonds, muesli with yoghurt and berry compote, and pizza with a half dozen side salad possibilities. I felt sort of as if some far off person had designed a restaurant for us and then waited a half dozen years for us to move to England and feel like a day trip to Brighton.

Needless to say, we were feeling pretty happy when we walked out of Bill's. We cut into a packed little alley of shops and immediately stumbled into a new source of happiness. A juggling shop called Odd Balls. Here we bought six WONDERFUL colorful bouncing juggling balls from the man who designed them (and demonstrated their bounciness by bounce juggling eight at once). We'll use these on Wednesday for a performance in the pub at my school - every week there's sort of a hodgepodge of poetry, music, and other talents in the pub, and our juggling show has been requested. Now we can colorfully comply.

That was just the first of many wonders - we slipped into Independent record stores, candy shops, stationary stores, cupcake bakeries and more as we combed "The Lanes", a series of narrow alleys packed with all that might interest, amuse, and entertain Brighton's many visitors. When we found our way out, we headed back to the beach.

On the far side of Brighton's original pier, now destroyed by fire (see picture #3 to see a billboard showing what it was once like with the blackened version in the background), we found a lovely strip of beach to wander down as the sun finally emerged from the clouds. We watched kite surfers skipping off the waves into aerial leaps, Bocce Ball players aggressively knocking each other's balls away from the goal, beach volleyball players, basketball players, and even a happy bunch of waders in a thirtyish foot wide circular kids pool (60 degrees, who cares when you are five?!) The beach was full of life. There were even some fun jewelry stands sprinkled beneath the pier. I bought a tiny pair of silver rollerskate earrings which I love.

When we tired of exploring, we settled into the gardens at the Palace Pavilion for a nap / people watching session, lulled into peacefulness by the chords of a talented street (garden?) guitarist. We wrapped up the day with Japanese food and then took the three leg train journey home, tired but happy, as the moon rose on our left and the sun set on our right.