The center of Bath is small enough for Aryn to walk it, although we regret not bringing a stroller she can use shortly after the second consecutive day of 80+ degree cloudless heat dawns. British-made thermometers don’t go that high. Brits see that kind of heat as often as Neapolitans see snow. I’d observed before how when the sun comes out in England there’s a nonstop party on the lawn. Take that party to the streets—that is, the roadways between Brighton and Bath—and you nearly triple a two and a half hour trip and arrive hot, irritated, and exhausted to a south-facing hotel room on a sunny street below the Royal Crescent. Add no A/C or airflow through that room (which was pretty nice, actually—found it on www.visitbath.co.uk), and you wake up still hot but now worried about the health of your two ill-sleeping children.
Note to parents travelling in Bath: down the hill from the Royal Crescent and to the right is the largest playground ever, with jungle gyms of all shapes and sizes, a merry-go-round, and a skatepark. Also nearby: wide open fields, wooded walkways, botanical gardens, fire pits, and probably some other stuff we didn’t see. This message will self-destruct in five seconds.
So we roll into the Jane Austen museum after eating breakfast with about twenty girls on a bachelorette weekend, Analee in the front-pack and Aryn walking. Aryn does well, digs the period costumes and the tea sets and the little biographical video (which gave her a great seating area to color—sorry, colour—on). The girls try on hats and capes, I read about naval action off of Minorca in the foreign column of a newspaper on display, and homage is paid. The temperature rises, and so does Aryn’s. Analee naps a little.
On the way out, smiling, we notice a sign seeking a part-time guide at the museum. Julie’s non-maternal career ambitions have just gone from dauntingly vague to impossibly specific.
The main attraction in Bath is, of course, the bath. The Romans “discovered” the hot springs here (in the way, say, that Columbus discovered America) and constructed a spa surrounding the reputed healing waters. After the Romans, the baths were neglected for a time until Queen Victoria bathed here and was reputedly cured of her infertility. The rest, as they say, was history.
The audio guide gives you an option for the regular narration, some comments by the one and only Bill Bryson, and a kid’s version. Aryn gets a huge kick out of the kid’s version and loves being able to punch in the numbers at each stop. “Which number is next, daddy?” Lots of people are touching the warm water, but when Aryn does, a staff member comes up and warn us of the multitude of diseases that thrive in the open-air pool. Awesome, we think, and her with a fever already. Purell. Maybe a fifty-pence sip of the (clean) healing waters in the pump room will help? Mmm. Coppery.
Any reader of Austen will be well aware of the town’s reputation as a destination of sorts for pleasure seekers, those who use the baths as an excuse to come, see, and be seen. Combine that with the general British need to party when sun the doth shine, and you’ll get a sense of the atmosphere here. The front five rows at the street performance are, by the performers’ design, college girls. Swarms of their female classmates, bachelorettes, the bachelor parties somewhat creepily shadowing them, the odd tour group, middle-age couples just having a good time. Would her satirical eye look as scornfully on these twittering masses as on her own peers?
The Jane Austen center’s tea room barely gets us in, and turns away the twenty or so people behind us. Analee is the center of attention, and plays with (i.e. drops on the floor) about fifty of their shiniest spoons. Aryn sips her mint tea once, twice, and her feverish eyes roll back into her head. She’s down for the count. “Let her sleep,” says Julie, “my cucumber sandwiches just arrived.” We’re enjoying the tea party alongside a thin, lone girl with a book and a fancy dress. She eats her cake, reads a bit, sneaks a glance at Analee. She folds up her book and leaves, silent. I can’t tell if she’s sadly or splendidly alone, but I suspect the latter.
When ordering our dessert that night at the bar, Analee meets a bachelor party. I relay a story to the bartender about how I once saw a mom set her baby on the bar late at night, and how sternly I judged her. Analee, from her seat on the bar, reaches out to try to pull that huge lever that would pour me a delicious local hard cider. The bachelor party pulls the groom-to-be away from someone so pure and wholesome. He has time for that kind of thing tomorrow, they say.
Bath meets our pilgrim’s expectations, although we run out of children’s Advil and spend large portions of time lying about in a hot room, resting and allowing the children to rest. Aryn’s cough keeps everyone awake, and the heat further drains. The sun is up at like four, and it’s pretty restless from then on. The sun doesn’t set ‘til like eleven, so it’s restless until then. We hardly expected this kind of warmth (predictions aligned with the yearly average in the 60s), and didn’t pack for it. The Brits never need A/C, and the previous occupants of our room actually battled 40s and 50s weather only a week before. Hard to fault the UK for having better weather than Naples. Anyways, all that merely to illustrate a day in the life of traveling parents. It’s totally awesome, and totally hard. Bring it.
Less traffic on the way to Beachy Head, even though the sun still blazes and the vintage cars are still out in force. And the convenience store along the highway sells kids’ ibuprofen in individual packets. Also Krispy Kreme donuts. God save the Queen!
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