Wells Cathedral and Bath Abbey

Wednesday, June 26

 

There was some kind of traffic back-up all morning in BoA which didn’t affect us directly but may have explained why the gift shop at the Tithe Barn didn’t open as advertised at 9:30.  We strolled along the Avon River using a path we hadn’t previously taken and returned to the gift shop a little later to get the gifts we had spotted on our previous visit.

 

The town of Wells is only slightly larger than BoA but when we arrived it sure seemed much larger.  It was a 45 minute drive and there was quite a bit of competition for parking.  We did finally find a space and walked a short distance to the Cathedral [360°] which is one of the more memorable ones in Britain.  It is unique for a number of reasons including the large number of medieval statues that survive in the niches on the west front and the Vicars’ Close [360°]which is a 14th century street that remains largely in its original form.  The Chapter House [360°] is also memorable, partly for the long stairway which leads to it and bends to the right just at the entrance.

We had a quick bite on the run and then headed back to the parking lot as our time expired.  The parking lot was a lot different at that hour, there actually were several open spots, but driving to Bath I decided I didn’t want to both battle traffic and search for parking in the center of that much bigger town.  So we used the Park & Ride which work out well except that the other Park & Ride lot would have avoided much of the time we spent afterwards during rush hour just trying to get across to the other side of Bath.

 

Bath Abbey (1) is not as old as the other major churches having been built in the 16th Century but it is just as beautiful.  Coinciding with our visit was an art exhibit in the Abbey and 15 minutes of organ practice which made our visit more interesting.

Afterwards we walked to the Circus [360°] and the Royal Crescent where we sat and rested on a park bench.  We watched a very energetic black dog running all over the park meeting people and racing other dogs.  On the way back to the Park & Ride bus stop we ran across an easily overlooked small walled garden open to the public that we had to all to ourselves.

I then had the dilemma of whether to drive out from the center of Bath, which would mean driving several miles before being able to turn east, or to drive into the center so that we would be headed east for BoA which is only ten miles from Bath.  I did the later thinking that at 6:00 the worst of the evening traffic would be over.  Turns out that traffic was still bad and it took the better part of an hour to return to our cottage, which somewhat defeated the purpose of the Park & Ride option.  Probably the best option would have been to have simply returned to BoA after visiting Wells and taken the 15 minute train ride into Bath.  Oh well, we got back with plenty of time for dinner and some packing before turning-in.  But the driving during the last two days made me appreciate the drawbacks of driving in Britain.  One of those drawbacks is that on most rural roads you'll only average about 35 MPH which is why it took so long to get to Wells at the start of the day.