Soaking Up Culture (Bath, England)

Soaking Up Culture (Bath, England) - Graced with timeless Georgian design with its target excellent symmetry and straightforward magnificence and matched with a world famous Roman spa, bathtub is unquestionably one amongst England’s greatest travel wonders. On discovering natural hot springs, the traditional Romans designed baths and associated therapeutic qualities to the mineral-rich waters. They dedicated the positioning to Minerva, the goddess of knowledge.

As the Roman Empire failed, the springs were forgotten till the spa city was reinvigorated with the royal patronage of Queen Anne. Refined buildings were erected to deal with the stately and prosperous people of the day.

The Royal Crescent could be a very good semi-circular honeycomb-coloured limestone building of thirty homes with a lush lawn as frontage.

Equally very good is that the Circus, a masterpiece that forms a whole circle cut into 3 equal segments by roads that lead into the complicated. All roads face straight onto one amongst the segments. galvanized by the Roman colosseum, the 3 storeys showcase 3 classical columns – Doric, Ionic and Corinthian. several famous individuals have referred to as The Circus their home together with William Pitt (ex-Prime Minister), the painter Thomas Gainsborough and African explorer, David Livingstone.

The Pulteney Bridge remains as one of only four bridges in the world with shops across the entire bridge. Spanning the Avon River, near a small cascade, it is built in the style of Ponte Vecchio in Florence. To build an element of relaxed and refined living, the city forefathers planned parklands to run alongside much of the Avon River in Bath, encouraging people to stroll the river banks or sit and enjoy the city’s charm.

Nearby bathtub Abbey with its huge vaulted ceilings features a purpose of significance for Australians. it's the memorial to Arthur Phillip, the primary governor of the colony of latest South Wales on European settlement in Australia in 1788. Similarly, a memorial to Isaac Pitman who invented shorthand is within the abbey.

However, the Roman bathtubs are undoubtedly the highlight of Bath. designed below today’s town level, the read from the terrace offers the primary read over the baths. the foremost inspiring component of the baths is that the advanced engineering employed by the Romans to manage the water flow and management the heating.

Hot, heat and cold baths were all designed at intervals the general public bathing complicated. The sacred spring will be seen through the steam at intervals the complicated at the side of the orange-coloured deposits from the made mineral content.

If you would like to check the medicinal qualities of the water, a sample will be drunk from the running fountain within the elegant glass-domed Grand Pump space nearby to the Roman Baths.

It is my favorite English town with its relaxed magnificence and a treasure trove of travel wonders. Sip the waters, stroll the relaxed streets, fancy the placing Georgian design and be astounded by the ingenuity of the traditional engineers within the remarkably intact Roman Baths.

The historic dockyard in the Royal Naval Base of Portsmouth is a treasure trove of British naval history throughout the centuries. In the one area, the Mary Rose from the mid-1500s, Admiral Nelson’s famous HMS Victory from the late-1700s and Britain’s first iron-armoured battleship, HMS Warrior from 1860 stand proud from the era where naval power was a passport to military dominance. A combined ticket offers good value to see all three ships along with a handful of museums.

From the seafaring figurehead at the front of the ship, elegant yellow and black paintwork, the network of rigging on the masts and the superbly constructed (though smallish) admiral quarters encased in numerous windows at the stern of the ship, HMS Victory has a regal feel. The hull is constructed from two feet (60 centimetres) of solid oak.

By contrast, the cramped conditions with over 100 cannons and 800 men in a tight space must have made sea battles a hell on water. Utilising every inch of space, the men’s hammocks swayed over the cannons while even the dining tables hung from ropes. People of even average height today need to duck to avoid striking their heads on the beams below decks.

With the pride of victory at Britain’s most famous sea battle at Trafalgar, HMS Victory remains in commission as the navy’s oldest ship. A plaque marks the location where Nelson was shot in the shoulder by a French musket ball. He died below decks three hours later, victory having being secured, supposedly uttering the words “Kiss me, Hardy” to the ship’s captain. On 21 October every year to commemorate the Battle of Trafalgar, marine flags representing Nelson’s famous expression “England expects that every man will do his duty" are hoisted.

Remarkably, one of HMS Victory’s large sails (around 25 metres by 15 metres), scarred with an estimated 90 shots from the French navy in the Battle of Trafalgar is on display in a special separate room.

Nearby is the Mary Rose, or more accurately a cross-section of it. Having capsized and sunk in 1545, King Henry VIII’s flagship lay on the seabed until she was retrieved in 1982, the portion that lay above the seabed having being consumed by marine woodworms. Today she sits in a ghostly mist of glycol behind Perspex windows, using the same longwinded but successful preservation method as the Swedish Vasa. A staggering number of artefacts are displayed nearby.

HMS Warrior reveals the life of a seaman in Queen Victoria’s time. This giant iron-hulled warship, replete with both steam power and sails never fought a battle. Her mere foreboding presence, power and heavy armory supposedly deterred all enemies. Again the starkness of the living conditions between the senior officers and the seamen and the cramped living conditions are visually striking.

Though a dull town, the harbour is a flourishing centre of activity with modern naval craft competing for space with the hordes of ferries heading for the neighbouring Isle of Wight or the European mainland. Portsmouth dockyards are a travel wonder making a wonderful day reliving naval history through three well-displayed and exceptional ships of their day giving a small sense of the harsh lives that the seafarers lived, especially in battle.

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Photo Source: Mary Rose

If John and Mary Shakespeare had not borne a son, William, who proved to be the world’s finest English language writer and playwright of all time, then it is doubtful whether the travel wonder of Stratford would have progressed beyond a pleasant English market town. Rather, people gather in their hordes to make a literary pilgrimage to Stratford-upon-Avon and “The Bard”. Stratford has captured and preserved aspects of the city centre around the early 1600s, especially anything remotely related to the writer and his family.

Doing a circular walk around town (the information centre has suggested walking tours marked on street maps), you can pass most of the major aspects of Shakespeare in time order starting at his half-timbered birthplace, containing an excellent museum detailing the shreds of understanding of Shakespeare’s life. Past Nash’s House, where the writer’s granddaughter lived, the grammar school (where Shakespeare likely schooled, though no-one seems to know for sure), another Shakespeare’s house and you’ll find the stately Hall’s Croft.

This elegant medieval mansion was the home of Shakespeare’s eldest daughter and her doctor husband. It hosts a creaky period feel with an intriguing display on the medicines of the time and a strong encouragement to stay healthy in those times.

Notably, High Street briefly escapes the Shakespeare-mania and is lined with well-preserved Elizabethan half-timbered houses from Shakespeare’s time with their low ceiling beams. Except for the cars, a bit of imagination could take you back to those times with the hubbub of people wandering to and from market for their daily needs.

Walking towards the Avon River, the Holy Trinity Church is the last resting place of William Shakespeare. Lit by fine stained glass windows and laying next to his wife in this stately honeycomb-coloured church, Shakespeare’s simple grave is marked by a curse in verse and a fear of being dug up:

      Good Frend For Iesus Sake Forbeare,
      To Digg The Dvst Encloased Heare.
      Bleste Be Ye Man Yt Spares Thes Stones,
      And Cvrst Be He Yt Moves My Bones.

Along the same river are the main theatres including the Royal Shakespeare and the Swan, the latter being modelled on Shakespeare’s original Globe Theatre. Different plays were on different nights when I was there and are well worth experiencing to complete the Shakespeare experience (though tickets were difficult to get). In sunny weather, punting along the Avon is a popular pastime and shows the town at its best.

A kilometer west of the town along a marked footpath is the steeply-roofed thatched farmhouse of Anne Hathaway (top photo). With a resplendent flower garden, trimmed hedges and superb wood-carved four-poster bed, this is the most photogenic of the Shakespeare houses.

Stratford-upon-Avon has strained every thread of detail about William Shakespeare’s poorly documented life, preserving the half-timbered houses of the time. If The Bard isn’t your thing, there are any number other English town that have richer histories, better sights and are less crowded. But if your school studies sparked even an interest in our most famous playwright, then Stratford is for you and a chance to reacquaint yourself with a play that you studied some years ago. And while you are there, head another ten kilometres north and visit the travel wonder of Warwick with its immense castle and impressive church.

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Soaking Up Culture (Bath)
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Jacob's Ladder (Cheddar)
Half-Timbered Houses (Lavenham)

Cheddar is a village in the south-west of England in an area threaded with deep gorges. This popular travel wonder is famous for being the original home for a tasty hard cheese and for its limestone caves.

The unremarkable photo is part of Jacob’s Ladder (named after the stairway to heaven), an ordinary set of 274 concrete steps through light forest, which take visitors from the gorge floor to a view over the expanse of county Somerset. To give an idea of the huge passage of time, it gets visitors to imagine that each step represents one million years. On that basis, the dinosaurs roamed the Earth for around 160 steps, dying out about 65 stairs ago while the caves were carved by flowing waters over a comparatively recent single stair.

All of human history is represented by a single sheet of paper resting on the very top step of this calf-burning climb. Makes you think about the fleeting nature of life.

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Half-Timbered Houses (Lavenham)

Lavenham is a delightful old English village with a disproportionately large church and delicately balanced medieval half-timbered houses. It looks as if a strong breeze could blow these ones over, though they've probably been there for 400 or 500 years. Ironically, the leaning house was the office of the local real estate agency when I took this photo!

One of the regulars at the local bar jocularly claimed that Twinkle Twinkle Little Star was originally written in Lavenham and offered to sing it. The frowns and stark expressions around me suggested I refuse the offer and it was clear that he'd already enjoyed a few pints. Who knows if he was correct but it is something that I've never forgotten.

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