There are certain expectations when visiting a place for the first time. Many impressions are built on stock photos of architecture, antiquities, natural wonders, and festivals. All of these photos aim to entice the tourist. And all of them leave out one important detail – the actual tourists. The photos are devoid of any buses or groups of people following an umbrella. The gift shops and modern shopping centers are mentioned as an aside in brochures and on websites, just in case someone wants a day of consumerism. Most photos are aimed at the person looking to fill their bucket list. Bath’s tourism literature is no different and as hard as it is to admit, I cannot avoid the label of tourist. I came to Bath to see the sights.

The only redeeming values of our hotel here are its location and a weak Wi-fi connection available in the lobby. Otherwise, our room consists of tired furnishings surrounded by peeling wallpaper. The questionable mold spots in the shower and the worn and bubbling carpets are incentives to go anywhere else. But you get what you pay for and we paid for location. The Bath Abbey and the Roman Baths are a five-minute walk from our hotel. It sounds like we must be isolated from the center of the city, but we are indeed in the heart of Bath. The Roman Baths and the Abbey Church Yard share a space surrounded by a shopping center full of the usual suspects, like Marks & Spencer and H&M. It is a surreal experience to stand above the Baths and simultaneously peer into millenniums-old water and a modern shopping center.

Despite all of this, Bath is a picturesque city. Somehow its beauty escapes the constant reminders of modern life. A walk across Pulteney Bridge and along the Avon from the overpass reveals a hillside view reminiscent of a Mediterranean city, but lush with green from constant rainfall. There are parks and gardens hiding in the city, three within a stroll from our hotel, where we can escape for a bit of solitude and if we go on a drizzly day, the only people we see are locals walking their dogs. The architecture of John Wood and his son are reminders of the Georgian and Victorian eras when Bath was THE place to go if you were a family of means. Bath was once the gauge of one’s place in society and with its wide boulevards and buildings around the Circus and the Royal Crescent, it provided the stage for “seeing and being seen”.

None of this takes away from the experience of touring the Roman Baths. It seemed a bit of a letdown as we queued behind a large tour group to get into the baths, but once we were down to the first level, the modern infiltrated the ancient only in its dissemination of information. The curators have made the experience as meaningful and educational as possible in a place with such a high volume of tourist traffic. We followed timelines and pathways along the walls of the ruins where we were pulled into little alcoves or where we walked over windows showing ancient floors.

There are plenty of places to step aside and reflect on the wonders of the past. Little reminders of human nature are seen in the written “curses” of people accusing someone of stealing their possessions while they bathed or the elaborate hairdos of wealthy women. Touring the Roman Baths culled my limited knowledge of the Romans I’ve retained from my Modern European History curriculum.

In an earlier post I talked about my connection to the universe and how small one individual can feel in its immensity. Touring the Roman Baths contributed to those feelings of uselessness, yet it also made me aware that I am part of this universal human experience. The water I observed bubbling up from the depths of the Earth came from rains that fell 10,000 years ago, long before the Romans. And when I am long dead and barely remembered, the water bubbling from those hot springs will still be water that fell before the Romans built their baths.

We guess at the original use of artifacts found during excavations. We try to understand societies on the little bits of stuff they leave behind. I wonder what my things say about me. Will someone get it right or will they make a new life for me based on their assumptions about my possessions? We don’t know much, yet we do know that the Romans, the Victorians, the Baby Boomers, the Millennials – all of us have the desire to participate in the human experience. We come together to celebrate, to condemn, to pray, and to bathe.