I moved from London to Bath 10 years ago with my young family. It has proved
to be an excellent decision. Bath ticks most boxes as a great place to live
and visit. With its elegant Georgian crescents and terraces, it is, of
course, a beautiful place, and the city is an ideal size. It is small enough
to explore on foot and also to escape from in a matter of minutes for
country walks.
Yet it is large (and sophisticated) enough to offer everything that makes
urban life enjoyable, including an ever-growing choice of good, gastropubs
and cafés, excellent, independent bookshops, a thriving theatre, various
literary and musical festivals and a superb Christmas market.
Perfect day out ...
With out-of-town friends in tow, if it’s a Saturday I’d start off with a graze
around the long-established farmers’ market at Green Park Station, then drop
in to Colonna & Small’s (colonnaandsmalls.co.uk) for a very superior cup
of coffee, prepared by passionate baristas. After that, I’d take them to the
prime Georgian sights. At the Royal Crescent, we’d perhaps spend half an
hour touring the recently reopened and expanded 1 Royal Crescent (no1royalcrescent.org.uk)
to see how the Georgians lived. Our route back into the centre would be via
the other Georgian set pieces of the Circus and Assembly Rooms. Lunch would
be at The Porter (theporter.co.uk),
a Georgian town house on George Street which has just been transformed into
a chic but reasonably priced all-day restaurant serving excellent food (the
local venison steak burger is good), plus a lounge bar upstairs.
A great way to spend a Saturday afternoon in Bath is to go to a rugby match.
Bath’s premiership rugby club (0844 448 1865; bathrugby.com)
is important community glue: the atmosphere is usually very good natured
(off the pitch, at least), the ground is central, and compared with
top-flight football, tickets are affordable. A perfect way to warm up
afterwards is with a soak in the thermal waters of the open-air, rooftop
pool of Thermae Bath Spa (www.thermaebathspa.com).
Where I tell my friends to stay
For a top-end hotel, I direct them to the Queensberry (01225 447928; thequeensberry.co.uk; doubles from £99). Spread over four interconnected Georgian town houses, it is more central, affordable and informal than Bath’s better-known luxury hotels. Bedrooms are individual with modern design, and I’ve eaten well in the basement Olive Tree Restaurant.
For a cheaper and often good-value option (rates do vary), I recommend the Halcyon (01225 444100; thehalcyon.com), close to the station, Roman Baths and spa. The compact but stylish bedrooms are currently available for as little as £75 b&b in January. Circo, its cavernous basement cocktail bar, with a DJ in situ at the weekends, is one of Bath’s night-time hot spots – avoid ground-floor bedrooms if you’re not planning to party until the small hours.
From the tower of Bath Abbey you can peer down into the Roman Baths
Favourite walk and bike ride
We are frequent visitors to Prior Park Landscape Garden (nationaltrust.org.uk/prior-park), on Bath’s southern slopes. The 45-minute walk around the grounds includes spectacular views over the Palladian bridge to the city beyond, and we often spot deer there.
For a cycle ride, I highly recommend taking the Two Tunnels Greenway up out of the city. Opened with much fanfare in April 2013, the route passes through two long and imaginatively lit former train tunnels. You can return to Bath along the towpath of the scenic Kennet and Avon Canal – the loop is 13 miles in total. See sustrans.org.uk/ncn/map/route/bath-two-tunnels.
Favourite restaurants
We love Casanis (01225 780055; casanis.co.uk), an utterly reliable little French restaurant with cosy and pretty Georgian dining rooms just behind the Assembly Rooms. It’s run by hands-on owners Laurent Couvreur, a Provencal chef, and his welcoming wife Gill. Winning dishes include the classic soupe de poissons, confit of duck, and lunchtime winter casseroles. Dine downstairs for more atmosphere, upstairs for more space.
For a more casual meal, somewhere we take the children, the White Hart Inn (01225 338053; whitehartbath.co.uk) is a long-standing favourite. Close to the station and just across the river in Widcombe, it's very much a locals’ haunt, furnished with stripped-wood tables and, despite the name, more of a restaurant than pub. Expect hearty portions, excellent Sunday roasts, and memorable sticky toffee pud.
Take my advice and ...
Come by train rather than car. Parking is expensive (see bathnes.gov.uk/services/parking-and-travel for options and charges), and the traffic into town can be bad, especially over the Christmas Market period. If you stay somewhere central, you can walk pretty much everywhere you might want to visit.
Favourite tea shop
We sometimes treat visitors to traditional afternoon tea at The Pump Room (01225 444477; searcys.co.uk). It’s touristy and pricey (full works £19.50 a head), and there’s often a wait for a table. But with gracious Georgian surroundings and a pianist or string trio playing as you eat your scones and cakes, it’s a quintessential Bath experience.
The Royal Crescent, one of the highlights of Georgian Bath
Favourite pub
For a quiet drink, definitely The Star Inn (star-inn-bath.co.uk). With a set of cosy, panelled rooms, no music or fruit machines, it’s wonderfully traditional. Extensive free nibbles appear around 9pm on Thursday evenings.
Favourite view
Bath is set in a bowl, so from many vantage points on the surrounding hills
you get excellent panoramas across the city. In the centre, the best view is
from the roof of the abbey’s tower, from where you can peer down into the
Roman Baths and across to the steaming rooftop pool of the spa. Fascinating,
guided 45-minute tours of the tower cost £6 (bathabbey.org).
Perfect night out
Take in a show at the Theatre Royal (theatreroyal.org.uk): forthcoming options include Fiddler on the Roof and a one-off, candlelit performance of Handel’s Messiah on December 8. Casanis (see above) does good-value pre-theatre suppers some evenings.
What I’ll be doing next ...
I’ll be braving the heaving crowds in Bath’s Christmas Market (bathchristmasmarket.com): November 28 to December 15, some 150 wooden chalets selling seasonal gifts and food will fill the Georgian precincts around the abbey and Roman Baths. I’ll be going ice-skating: from November 22 to January 5, there will be a rink not far from the Royal Crescent in Victoria Park (bathonice.com). And I’ll be steeling myself for dreadful jokes at the Theatre Royal’s annual panto (Peter Pan, December 12 to January 12). Next year I’m looking forward to the Bath Literature Festival from February 29 to march 9 (bathfestivals.org.uk/literature), though the programme has yet to be announced.
A book for inspiration?
Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey and Persuasion for lively and pithy descriptions of the city’s Georgian heyday. In German air raids of Bath in April 1942, 400 people were killed and 19,000 buildings damaged. Bath in The Blitz: Then & Now (thehistorypress.co.uk; £12.99) contains vivid accounts of the bombings and subsequent restoration, comparing archive photos of the damage with current-day scenes.
Where I tell my friends to stay
For a top-end hotel, I direct them to the Queensberry (01225 447928; thequeensberry.co.uk; doubles from £99). Spread over four interconnected Georgian town houses, it is more central, affordable and informal than Bath’s better-known luxury hotels. Bedrooms are individual with modern design, and I’ve eaten well in the basement Olive Tree Restaurant.
For a cheaper and often good-value option (rates do vary), I recommend the Halcyon (01225 444100; thehalcyon.com), close to the station, Roman Baths and spa. The compact but stylish bedrooms are currently available for as little as £75 b&b in January. Circo, its cavernous basement cocktail bar, with a DJ in situ at the weekends, is one of Bath’s night-time hot spots – avoid ground-floor bedrooms if you’re not planning to party until the small hours.
From the tower of Bath Abbey you can peer down into the Roman Baths
Favourite walk and bike ride
We are frequent visitors to Prior Park Landscape Garden (nationaltrust.org.uk/prior-park), on Bath’s southern slopes. The 45-minute walk around the grounds includes spectacular views over the Palladian bridge to the city beyond, and we often spot deer there.
For a cycle ride, I highly recommend taking the Two Tunnels Greenway up out of the city. Opened with much fanfare in April 2013, the route passes through two long and imaginatively lit former train tunnels. You can return to Bath along the towpath of the scenic Kennet and Avon Canal – the loop is 13 miles in total. See sustrans.org.uk/ncn/map/route/bath-two-tunnels.
Favourite restaurants
We love Casanis (01225 780055; casanis.co.uk), an utterly reliable little French restaurant with cosy and pretty Georgian dining rooms just behind the Assembly Rooms. It’s run by hands-on owners Laurent Couvreur, a Provencal chef, and his welcoming wife Gill. Winning dishes include the classic soupe de poissons, confit of duck, and lunchtime winter casseroles. Dine downstairs for more atmosphere, upstairs for more space.
For a more casual meal, somewhere we take the children, the White Hart Inn (01225 338053; whitehartbath.co.uk) is a long-standing favourite. Close to the station and just across the river in Widcombe, it's very much a locals’ haunt, furnished with stripped-wood tables and, despite the name, more of a restaurant than pub. Expect hearty portions, excellent Sunday roasts, and memorable sticky toffee pud.
Take my advice and ...
Come by train rather than car. Parking is expensive (see bathnes.gov.uk/services/parking-and-travel for options and charges), and the traffic into town can be bad, especially over the Christmas Market period. If you stay somewhere central, you can walk pretty much everywhere you might want to visit.
Favourite tea shop
We sometimes treat visitors to traditional afternoon tea at The Pump Room (01225 444477; searcys.co.uk). It’s touristy and pricey (full works £19.50 a head), and there’s often a wait for a table. But with gracious Georgian surroundings and a pianist or string trio playing as you eat your scones and cakes, it’s a quintessential Bath experience.
The Royal Crescent, one of the highlights of Georgian Bath
Favourite pub
For a quiet drink, definitely The Star Inn (star-inn-bath.co.uk). With a set of cosy, panelled rooms, no music or fruit machines, it’s wonderfully traditional. Extensive free nibbles appear around 9pm on Thursday evenings.
Favourite view
Bath is set in a bowl, so from many vantage points on the surrounding hills
you get excellent panoramas across the city. In the centre, the best view is
from the roof of the abbey’s tower, from where you can peer down into the
Roman Baths and across to the steaming rooftop pool of the spa. Fascinating,
guided 45-minute tours of the tower cost £6 (bathabbey.org). Perfect night out
Take in a show at the Theatre Royal (theatreroyal.org.uk): forthcoming options include Fiddler on the Roof and a one-off, candlelit performance of Handel’s Messiah on December 8. Casanis (see above) does good-value pre-theatre suppers some evenings.
What I’ll be doing next ...
I’ll be braving the heaving crowds in Bath’s Christmas Market (bathchristmasmarket.com): November 28 to December 15, some 150 wooden chalets selling seasonal gifts and food will fill the Georgian precincts around the abbey and Roman Baths. I’ll be going ice-skating: from November 22 to January 5, there will be a rink not far from the Royal Crescent in Victoria Park (bathonice.com). And I’ll be steeling myself for dreadful jokes at the Theatre Royal’s annual panto (Peter Pan, December 12 to January 12). Next year I’m looking forward to the Bath Literature Festival from February 29 to march 9 (bathfestivals.org.uk/literature), though the programme has yet to be announced.
A book for inspiration?
Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey and Persuasion for lively and pithy descriptions of the city’s Georgian heyday. In German air raids of Bath in April 1942, 400 people were killed and 19,000 buildings damaged. Bath in The Blitz: Then & Now (thehistorypress.co.uk; £12.99) contains vivid accounts of the bombings and subsequent restoration, comparing archive photos of the damage with current-day scenes.
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