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Tag Archives: Bath

My 1 Year UK-Versary!

12 Friday Oct 2012

Posted by frannyritchie in Uncategorized

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Bath, Cambridge, Freiburg, Ghent, photography, retrospective, travel, Valencia

Somewhere in the last few weeks, I celebrated the end of my first year as a UK resident.  The year has really flown by, and it made me realise how much cool stuff I’ve gotten to do in the last year. When Our Friend Liz was here, she asked if we’d traveled much.  We said “oh, a little…” and then reeled off a list that was much longer than we’d even been aware of.  I went to Israel, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, France, Spain, and The Netherlands, plus some really beautiful places in the UK.   I’ve done some really cool stuff in the last year.  Of course, its been hard, too – moving to a new country is a grand adventure blah blah blah but its also stressful, lonely and isolating.  The weather has been terrible, cold in the summer and dark in the winter, and damp all the time.  And making friends is an ongoing challenge.  I’ve met some really nice people and have been lucky enough to get lots of love from the states, but I don’t have a go-to group.  Ian and I don’t have much opportunity to do things spur-of-the-moment if we want to invite other people and we’re not in a position to turn down invitations.  That said, we do get (and reciprocate) invitations, and its rare that we go a week without a social event of some sort.  I’d prefer three or four social events, but its a start.  And its amazing that the desperate things I did in my first days here have paid off – when I accosted a couple looking at the same rental property, I didn’t imagine that we would still be hanging out with them a year later, but we are.

After a year of living here, I feel pretty settled: the fitness instructors at Kelsey Kerridge all know my name (I am immensely proud of that) and we even went out on the town together a few weeks ago.  The guy at the Turkish market with amazing produce knows that I don’t like to use plastic bags (and they have cevapcici! SO EXCITING!).  The girl at the coffee shop knows me because I have a really sweet travel mug that I bought when the local fancy furniture shop was going out of business (they also sold housewares), and she’s jealous of it.  I haven’t used Google maps to navigate around Cambridge in weeks.  When I moved here, I was always finding new cycle paths, but I haven’t found any new ones in months.

There were things about living here that came quickly: I got a bike and a mobile phone and a Network Rail Card and learned to use the currency without fumbling. All of that was a big deal to me – “see? I belong here! I’m legit!” but there have been more subtle recent developments, like the grocery guy recognising me. Cambridge is small and they speak my native language, but nonetheless, I know my way around here.  The city has become mine, in a small way

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Bath Tourism Highlights

18 Wednesday Jul 2012

Posted by frannyritchie in Uncategorized

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Bath, books, England, entertainment, history, Jane Austen, Persuasion, photography, Roman Baths, travel, UK

Ian and I are headed to Oxford this weekend after attending the Kings College Garden Party (because we’re fancy!).  I am super excited to visit my old stomping grounds – we’re going to hit up the Pitt Rivers Museum, Worcester College (alma mater!) and Ben’s Cookie Bar, because I’m obsessed with that place.  And maybe the botanic gardens and the Ashmolean.

We can really do a tourism blitzkrieg when we set our minds to it – which we proved in Bath.  We got in on Friday, and went to see School for Scandal (as I mentioned in a previous post).  On Saturday, after going to Jika Jika for breakfast, (a bar owned by rugby players) we hit up the Roman Baths (Bill Bryson has his own audio tour, which actually was a disappointment.  It wasn’t funny, although it wasn’t trying to be.  The actual informative audio tour was great.  Two hours (plus 30 minutes spend queuing) well spent.  After a leisurely morning, we went to The Circus for an amazing lunch, and then went to the Assembly Rooms, which also houses the Fashion Museum.  I was particularly excited because the Assembly Rooms are featured in Persuasion, which is possibly my favoritest favorite movie ever (there’s a photo in the montage above). It was so evocative of Jane Austen for me – even more than the Jane Austen Centre.

Sunday we hit of the Jane Austen Museum and then did a small tour of Bath crescents.  The Royal Crescent is the famous semi-circle (crescent) of Georgian buildings; they were actually built by the George who gave his name to Georgian buildings because he was the first monarch to get really into spas and taking the waters.  The crescent shape caught on, and there are a few of them scattered around the city. We were also able to work in more of the sets from Persuasion – there is a gravel path where Anne and Wentworth walk together (one of the only places they would have had any privacy, apparently – the picture of me was taken there, during the five minutes that it wasn’t raining); one of the less fashionable crescents where Anne’s family took rooms (it looks pretty down-at-heel today, to be honest).  And it turns out that our hotel was immediately adjacent to the place where Jane stayed on her first stay in Bath.  She wasn’t ever very happy in Bath – she grew up in the country – but as the setting of many scenes from her books, it still comes alive.  There’s Georgian stuff everywhere.  There’s plenty in Cambridge, but its a whole other thing in Bath.

The best part about the ramp-up to Bath is that Ian and I considered many potential destinations before settling on one, so we’ve got a backlog of fantasy holidays locked and loaded.  Bring on the adventure!

 

 

Eating your way through England: Bath

13 Friday Jul 2012

Posted by frannyritchie in Snacks

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Bath, entertainment, food, The Circus, travel, UK

Ian and I are champion eaters.  In fact, its recently occurred to me that I’m really going to have to step up my fitness regimen if we’re going to continue to travel like this – the trips we’ve taken recently have included Valencia (restaurant week!), Brussels (moules frites!) and Bath (just….food.  so much food.)  And we’re not exactly abstemious in our day-to-day life, either.

Anyway.  With the exception of a disappointing Thai meal (and it was still Thai food, so how wrong can you go?), we ate phenomenally well.  We went to Gascoyne Place, a gastro-pub, for an early meal before the Theatre Royal Bath (apparently its a big deal.  We saw School For Scandal.  It was pretty good).  Then we went on a mini-bar crawl – we went to The Raven, a pub we liked so much that we went back for lunch, and to the Canary Wine & Gin Bar.

The food highlight of the weekend was The Circus, a tiny, unassuming little cafe (it turned out to have a huge downstairs – way less tiny that I thought) with amazing food.  I had grilled peppers, peaches and chorizo with rocket salad, and Ian and I split an heirloom tomato salad.  I was ready to just set up camp in the corner and stay forever.

Still to come: the tourist attractions! The Roman Baths and the Jane Austen tour.

Bath makes for a pretty sweet weekend destination.

10 Tuesday Jul 2012

Posted by frannyritchie in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Bath, England, Great British Summer, photography, Roman Baths, travel, UK

The Circus is one of the most famous sets of buildings in Bath, just down the street from the Royal Crescent.  Like so much else in Bath, its quintessentially Georgian.  I particularly liked the intricate carvings above the door – there were a couple dozen different designs, and though some of them were replicated, I couldn’t figure out a pattern or logic.

Ian and I talked a lot about the appeal of Bath – would you want to live in one of the houses on the Circus, or the Royal Crescent?  The Royal Crescent seemed particularly unappealing.  Sure, you live in a beautiful building with a great view and a giant park as your front garden, but you have yahoos like me always trying to peer in your front windows.  What’s more, while Bath isn’t that big, you’re not close to grocery stores or fitness centers or really anything except museums, a couple really good restaurants, and a lot of tourist schlock.

Although I’m not convinced I’d want to stay there, Ian and I wrung everything we could out of the weekend. We had originally planned to go to Portugal, but decided we’d rather wait for bird migration season, and so we chose Bath because we figured most of the good stuff to do is inside, anyway (and it poured pretty much the whole time we were there, so that was smart thinking). In two days, we hit up the Roman Baths, the Fashion Museum, the Pump Rooms, the Assembly Rooms, the Jane Austen Centre, the Royal Crescent, the Royal Bath Theatre, the Pretentious Coffee Shop, the Bar Owned by Rugby Players, the Unassuming Local Pub, the Shmancy Restaurant with the Best Food Since Valencia, the Yuppie Furniture Shop Where We Bought a New Coffee Table, the Disappointing Bakery and the Banana Republic, where Ian got a new t-shirt.  Not all of those are the actual names.

Things we missed: the Holborne Museum looks worth a visit, as does the Building of Bath Museum.  Honestly, though, if we were to stay longer, the thing I’d most want to do is drink more lattes and eat more food. There are a lot of restaurants and coffee shops I didn’t get to go to.

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