A Visit to Roman Baths for our 10th Anniversary

A Visit to Roman Baths for our 10th Anniversary. When we were first engaged, one of the first things we did was find a suitable wedding venue. We chose the Roman Baths for our wedding dinner because it’s an unusual place and I had been there to visit before and knew of its beauty. I fell in love with Bath, with its charming Georgian architecture, when I first visited in 2003 with friends and so marrying in Bath was a dream come true!

Our children were always curious about our wedding venue from the photos we’ve shown them and said they’d love to visit. As this was our 10^th anniversary, we decided to retrace our brilliant day with our children. It was such an exciting thing to do! We first showed them the Guildhall where we were registered and then we walked down to the Parade Garden where we took our wedding photos. We then circled back and visited the Roman Baths.

If you have never been to Roman Baths, it is always best to plan extra time for queuing especially during their busier times like the weekend. The admission charges include the use of a hand held audio guide. The language are available in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Mandarin, Dutch, Korean, Polish and Portuguese. The British Sign Language handset is also available.

Roman Baths is one of the best preserved Roman remains in the world and were constructed around 70 AD as a grand bathing and socialising complex. Today, the steaming spring water still reaches 46 °C and fills the bathing site every single day. Any other surplus water will flow back to the River Avon.

Walking on the ancient pavement from the Terrace, which is adorned with statues and shadowed by the great Abbey, you can see the magnificent Great Bath. It lies below street level. It was also a great place to take a selfie! We took plenty of those with our children especially as we had the best weather! The sun was out and best of all, the temperature was exactly the same as when we got married. It was sunny, calm and slightly milder than the few days before.

We explored the chambers which include the remains of the ancient heated rooms and changing rooms as well as tepid and plunge pools. The children followed along excitedly on the audio guide. There are more treasures to explore in this interactive museum than I remember from 14 years ago, with visual snippets that transport you back to Roman times and the lives of the Aquae Sulis people. The whole place has been updated with more seating areas and child friendly facilities provided and 90% of the site is now accessible to people in wheelchairs.

The extensive ruins look so magnificent and with great history behind this that shape our lives today. I was interested to learn about the brick making that was a significant new industry that was brought to Britain. Besides exploring the brick works, you can also meet Roman costumed characters and listen to their ancient stories from 10am to 5pm every day.

While exploring the place, a part of the history caught our eyes was the curse messages for the god. Who knew that you could write a message to the god to curse the person who stole your clothing! What a fun fact!

When we were near the end of our visit, there is a free flow of spa water in the Pump Room, which is free to drink for all visitors. It contains 42 minerals and is believed to have healing powers. We were definitely not a big fan of it! It tasted very metallic that we all had to have a little rinse of our own mineral water.

We loved this delightful educational opportunity to visit Roman Baths. It is definitely a must visit if you visit Bath. The ancient ruins are breathtaking and the history behind it was educational for everyone.

Disclosure: We were provided a family pass for the purposes of writing this review, however, all thoughts and opinions remain our own.