A bath in Bath

The train carried us west to Bath on Saturday. Since Bath is a small town, popular with tourists, our only option was to book a room in a hostel. The local YMCA runs an excellent hostel. We checked into a small, clean room with bunk beds. Actually quite nice.

Before taking the free walking tour of the city, we watched a group setup a bell ringing device and then coax hesitant tourists to attempt to yank on ropes, in some sort of musical rhythm, that ran around large wheels before jerking the bells. It was a ridiculous cacophony, but interesting to watch. More musically pure was a lone musician playing a “hang”, a round drum like object that is tapped with the fingers and sounds like a stringed instrument. You can hear a short sample here: http://www.oddmusic.com/gallery/om16250.html.

On the tour we learned about the playboy gambler who was “king” of Bath several hundred years ago. The town was almost his private club; he would organize huge parties and visitors would need to check in with him. There was also an interesting version of tax evasion on display. At one point the government taxed homes based on the number of windows. This was particularly cruel during the time before electricity when windows were essential for making the interior anything more than a depressing dungeon. The tax rule stated that if windows were further than a certain dimension apart they would count as 2 windows. Creative builders were able to skinny up the supporting stone between windows so that 2 windows would actually count as one. We also learned the gracefulness of middle aged toilets. The chamber pot was usually kept in the room behind a screen. You would converse with your guests and when the urge came simply step behind the screen to “take your ease”. The pot was then disposed of by dumping it through holes in the wall into a ditch by the road. The resulting “night soil” was collected and removed by someone unable to get a better job. Somewhat more civilized were the hanging toilets from the side of homes. This was simply a small, wooden room attached to the second story with a hole in the floor to allow “night soil” to fall to the ground.

Next was a bath in Bath. The Roman Baths have been renovated as of a few years ago, and are now open to the public. The water is piped to more modern pools than the original Roman ones. We paddled and splashed in a rooftop pool in the sun with hundreds of other tourists.

You can’t swim where the Romans did, but you can walk through the old Roman baths, guided by excellent descriptions and displays. The baths are extensive with various rooms for steaming, cooling, and dipping. Exiting we were able to taste a swig of the warm water. It’s actually not bad, except for the warm temperature.

Bath has quite a nightlife, but much of it is college students club hopping. We joined a comedy walking tour called Bizarre Bath, that was decidedly different. The comedian was exceptional and kept us laughing the entire night as we strolled around Bath. One highlight was when a stuffed “Houdini” rabbit escaped from chains and a mailbag after being thrown in the river. Another was when a trailer who had not paid for the tour was put into stocks and carrots were thrown at her (including one by Shereen) before her head was cut off (ok, it was an illusion, she walked away afterwards). I was suckered into one of his numbers gags; stating he could read people’s minds he asked me to think of a number between 1 and 100, then asked if I had “one”. When I answered yes without thinking, he revealed the one.