9/18/15
It was Kath's birthday today, so I took the day off as she was as well. And b/c the weather was just so gorgeous. With the nice weather and day off, I decided to bike to Bath, the little town famous for it's Roman Baths, back when the Roman empire stretched as far out as the British Isles.
The UK has this amazing bike network called the National Cycle Network that links hundreds of miles of bike paths together. Where there is a break between bike paths, they route you, via excellent signage, on non-busy rural streets to connect to the next set of bike paths. It's super amazing. The more I explore it, the more impressed I am. Really easy to follow, good signs with distances, and so many places to go. I once read a Bill Bryson novel called "Notes from a Small Island" about his journey backpacking through the England. I was imagining that now you could do an amazing bike packing trip stopping at pubs and small inns along the way with this cycle network.
Anyways, cycled to Bath, which is on a bike path the entire 18 miles. Bath is an old and cute little city. I actually visited it before when I was doing a study abroad trip to London with Drs Maughan, Claassen, and Schaper. Sara, Jenn, Tyler, Ashley, and I all took the bus there from London for a day trip to see Bath and also Stonehenge. Because of this, I didn't pay the $25 bucks to go inside the Roman baths since I'd already seen them. Save my money for a different adventure. But I walked around Bath for a while and did a hike up to a viewpoint of the city.
After exploring bath, I found another bike path called the 2 tunnels greenway, which I rode all the way to Radstock. The trail was nice b/c it went out into the country into farmland and the little stone country towns. But the highlight was that it went through two very long old train tunnels (a lot of the cycle paths are similar to our rails to trails in the US). The longest being over 1 mile long! They of course had lights inside, but one of the cool things is they also had music playing in the tunnel from these little speakers, so you got to enjoy classical music has you biked through the dark and cool tunnel. My dad would have absolutely loved it! I was out much longer than I had anticipated, so I got a bit hungry, but not problem b/c the trails here are just lined with blackberry bushes loaded with delicious berries! All in all, I biked about 62 miles today. Not bad.
It was Kath's birthday today, so I took the day off as she was as well. And b/c the weather was just so gorgeous. With the nice weather and day off, I decided to bike to Bath, the little town famous for it's Roman Baths, back when the Roman empire stretched as far out as the British Isles.
The UK has this amazing bike network called the National Cycle Network that links hundreds of miles of bike paths together. Where there is a break between bike paths, they route you, via excellent signage, on non-busy rural streets to connect to the next set of bike paths. It's super amazing. The more I explore it, the more impressed I am. Really easy to follow, good signs with distances, and so many places to go. I once read a Bill Bryson novel called "Notes from a Small Island" about his journey backpacking through the England. I was imagining that now you could do an amazing bike packing trip stopping at pubs and small inns along the way with this cycle network.
Anyways, cycled to Bath, which is on a bike path the entire 18 miles. Bath is an old and cute little city. I actually visited it before when I was doing a study abroad trip to London with Drs Maughan, Claassen, and Schaper. Sara, Jenn, Tyler, Ashley, and I all took the bus there from London for a day trip to see Bath and also Stonehenge. Because of this, I didn't pay the $25 bucks to go inside the Roman baths since I'd already seen them. Save my money for a different adventure. But I walked around Bath for a while and did a hike up to a viewpoint of the city.
After exploring bath, I found another bike path called the 2 tunnels greenway, which I rode all the way to Radstock. The trail was nice b/c it went out into the country into farmland and the little stone country towns. But the highlight was that it went through two very long old train tunnels (a lot of the cycle paths are similar to our rails to trails in the US). The longest being over 1 mile long! They of course had lights inside, but one of the cool things is they also had music playing in the tunnel from these little speakers, so you got to enjoy classical music has you biked through the dark and cool tunnel. My dad would have absolutely loved it! I was out much longer than I had anticipated, so I got a bit hungry, but not problem b/c the trails here are just lined with blackberry bushes loaded with delicious berries! All in all, I biked about 62 miles today. Not bad.
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| Bristol to Bath bikepath |
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| Bristol to Bath bike path |
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| the obligatory red phone booth photo |
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| famous Bath view |
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| near to the Roman Baths |
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| The city of Bath |
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| one of the long tunnels |
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| at one of the small countryside towns |
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| Radstock |
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| inside one of the tunnels, listening to classical music |
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| Made it back to Bristol in time for sunset |
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