First sight of Bath

Welcome to my bathtub, I’m planning to laze here for the next four months. Yes, at the end of January I will have been in Bath for four months.

We, me and S, are here in Bath, in the southwest part of United Kingdom. Nearby the sixth largest city of England, Bristol, which is about 20 kilometres northwest from Bath.

Typical Bath scenery @Great Pulterney Street

Our neighbourhood

Bath itself is quite a small city, just under a hundred thousand inhabitants. That’s very much like Vaasa in Finland; old, small and compact. The city is located in the middle of small hills, in the valley of the river Avon. The River Avon itself is streaming slowly through the city. It is narrow, the water is dirty and therefore it’s slightly boring, and in my opinion, underused in the city scenery.

(and next two pictures don't tell the whole story :)

Pulterney Bridge and RiverAvon

River Avon

I like water, and luckily there’s also an 18^th century built canal. It flows through the whole southern part of England and merges with the river Thames in the West of London, so you can boat across England. What an adventure if I ever have time for that. The canal flows right next to our home, and it’s a very nice route for jogging or cycling. There’s lot of beautiful narrowboats on the canal, and I guess some people are living on it. You can also rent some of them, if you want to experience canal boating yourself. We planned on doing that, but later we realized that it has already become too cold to do that. Maybe next time, although S. laughed when I made this comment.

Kenneth & Avon Canal

River and canal crossing, weird!

Many of our Finnish friends say that they already know Bath because of Jane Austen’s famous books, in which people hang around here on their holiday.  Jane Austen has lived in Bath a couple of times and has also written some of her books here. It’s nice that that city has been a tourist attraction since roman time, when people from the Roman Empire came here to take a hot bath. In the centre of Bath there’s still a historical building called the Roman baths, of which the oldest parts are from the first century! 

(more about that in another blog later)

But there’s also one weird thing because of Baths, in my opinion. The railway station of Bath named Bath Spa. Could you imagine that double name, it’s like “kylpy-kylpylä” in Finnish.

Kylpy Kylpylä

Maybe because of those baths, the city centre is very historically and beautiful, at first sight. Most buildings were built in the18^th century and at that time buildings were mostly covered with local limestone. Also new buildings were covered with stone, to preserve the original historical scenery of the city. Because of that same stone pattern in every building, sometimes that limestone makes the city look boring. The whole city of Bath belongs to Unesco World Heritage list and I think that’s the reason why they have to preserve that old limestone-like atmosphere in new buildings. But I also have to say, that you have just spend one day in Bristol, and after that Bath looks again very beautiful.

Take a short look to Bristol.

Bristol suburbs

Bristol centre - more like a Finland :)

And back to Bath again. No more Bristol, ever, I promise!

Besides that Bath itself is beautiful, Bath is located in the middle of wonderful nature. The area north from Bath, called Cotswolds, is one of the most beautiful countryside in England. It has an official statement called “Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty”, sounds nice or what? Cotswolds is traditional countryside, full of different sizes of hills rolling around. And the views on there, when hiking, are lovely. Stonewalls and pastures colouring the hills, and a lot of different domestic animals like sheep or horses are pasturing around. It’s a very relaxing atmosphere.

The city itself is also chatty. There is no big shopping centre at bath, which makes its centre very alive. There are lots of small shops and cafés everywhere and free WiFi to work on. But after 6 pm the city is almost dead. Yes really mean that. The most shops close at 7pm, at the latest, and after that the streets fade out. So if you want to shop, you have to do it straight after work.

Unknown square at centre

That’s enough about Bath. But what are WE doing here then, just having a holiday? Not really. S. is studying at the University of Bath until the end of January and I’m looking around to find an interesting voluntary job. But it seems to be hard, because there has been a lot of pedophile scandals in England, thus background checks and paperwork to get a job with children take so much time, that everybody says that they don’t want to do it only for a four months period. So, I’m looking after something else, but right now my motivation isn’t very good.

So, nowadays I’m doing a little bit of remote working and studying English as much as I can, but I could do a lot more. One important part of studying is this blog, which I’m writing in English. I just realised, that since graduating high school, I have only rarely written in English, about once in a year and you can see it. And this is also a good reason to take more photos, an interest, which has been on hold for too long.

So, I’m sorry that you have to read my scrappy English. But you don’t really have to read this at all. But if you want, try to enjoy.

Yours, T.