All roads lead to Rome (sort of)

October 10, 2024

Tour one, day one

They say that all roads lead to Rome. I'm less than convinced. I've travelled quite a few in my time; some of them ended at T junctions, others were cul de sacs, and a far higher than average number went to the coast. It's true that two of the roads did previously end in Rome, as did one of the railways and several of the runways, but that doesn't in my view make for a particularly compelling case. That said, day one tour one of our mystery jaunt saw us on a road heading for somewhere with heavy Roman influences: the city of Bath, eponymously famed for its Roman... baths. (Probably a good job it wasn't renowned for a Roman abbatoir, or brothel).

I'd picked Bath as our destination for three reasons. Firstly, the distance seemed about right for a day trip, at about 85 miles. Secondly, it's a lovely city. Thirdly, and just as importantly, it had a central Travelodge hotel charging 45 quid for the night's stay. None of these things, I suspect, factor into the thinking of the 6 million or so other tourists who wash into the city every year, slightly overwhelming the resident population of around 90,000.

Bath is an understandably attractive destination. Its natural warm springs led the Romans to develop the baths and shrine for which it would later become famed; in Georgian times, it became a hugely popular and prosperous spa, and is everywhere constructed of the rather fetching and photogenic cream coloured stone found in the area. It is now one of few locations to be a UNESCO heritage site twice over, the second time for its status as one of Europe's great spas. If and when UNESCO develops a further category to recognise sites for their importance to the coach trip industry, it'll probably achieve the hat trick, because as one of the UK's ten most visited cities it squishes an impressive density of gawping tourists into its compact central area. Also, and a propos of nothing very much, it's the place I secured my first proper and pretty well-paid job, by pretending to be enormously interested in a forever career of computer programming, during my year out before university. I'm still not sure how I blagged that one, although not telling them about the already-secured uni place may have been partly relevant.

I was up at half seven, and the view from the window looked promising. The sky was mostly blue, and although the temperature was down, there wasn't much wind to speak of. Granola for breakfast, a few farewells, and I descended the stairs to see that it was raining steadily. You have to love the British climate. Having given it twenty minutes to ease off, I finally left the house just before nine, when most of the rush hour traffic was tailing off.

View aross the river Exe, as I crossed the bridge about eight miles into the journey. There are good cycle paths around Exeter, at least by UK standards, and this was taken from one of the routes.

I headed north, following familiar roads for the first thirty miles or so. Devon can be a pretty up and down kind of place, but today's route through to the Somerset border didn't have any notable hills to speak of.

The Devon village of Broadclyst. It's picturesque enough, with a smattering of thatched roofs and traditional cottages. But what's particularly noticeable is the colour scheme: pretty much all the houses are painted identically. This is because the village is owned by the National Trust, as part of the Killerton Estate... money is tight in the charity sector and I guess bulk buying was cheaper for them. 😉

Our roads were pretty wet, not just because of the morning's shower, but also because of the deluge which we'd enjoyed earlier in the week. There was a fair bit of mud and surface water lying around a lot of the lanes, but Komoot had taken mercy on us and avoided most of the real back routes.

A fairly typical view from the morning: damp road, decent sky, pleasant scenery. Disappointing lack of bakeries though.

By about half eleven, we were leaving our first county and closing in on Wellington. The town is connected with the Duke of the same name, victor of the Battle of Waterloo, and there's a 50m obelisk nearby to commemorate his achievement. The town itself isn't that remarkable, but he chose it because he was born in the nearby village of Wellesley, which sounded similar.

I'm not sure this qualifies as sculpture, personally. But it's enormous and undeniably phallic, which probably felt appropriate for a soldier at the top of his game.

Wellington is also noteworthy for the fact that I'd hand selected it for morning coffee. We pulled into a lovely garden centre and tucked into a very acceptable Eggs Benedict and coffee, keenly eyed by a nearby pigeon who took a fairly proactive interest in proceedings.

Raven inspected the winter bulbs, while I concentrated on refuelling.

In a different context, this would be called "aggressive begging." Except, (s)he wasn't asking. I just about stopped the darned bird from hopping onto the plate.

Shortly after, I took my plate and mug back inside, only for the pigeon to tailgate me through the door, and start flapping around other diners. It being a garden centre, several of them were of an age that I thought the excitement might finish them off. Luckily, the waiting staff had clearly encountered this problem before, and skillfully shooed the avian intruder out with strategically-waved plastic trays.

More bloody birds. These were roaming around near the toilet, looking menacing. I think they knew I'd just been tucking into two eggs.

We escaped the clutches of the garden centre fairly swiftly, partly because it was to be a long day of cycling, and partly because I didn't know what other bird life might emerge to bother us. Falconry is popular around these parts, and we could do without being divebombed. Our road went on to Taunton, the county town and main settlement of Somerset. We neatly avoided its centre by turning off onto the canalside route which kept us away from civilisation, and took us under the canopy of several overhanging trees so that we were less likely to be seen by any pursuing birdlife.

A rainbow-coloured cycle path as we first dropped down to the canal. This was as close as we got to the town centre, the road to which is directly ahead.

We followed the canal for a few miles, continuing the "flat" theme which largely characterises Somerset. And then we headed for Glastonbury, the small settlement known for its annual music festival, attended by over 200,000 people. The festival is actually held nearby, in Pilton, on the working farm of the family who started it with an audience of 1500 hippies back in 1970. But we weren't about to add several miles to see a cow field, so we parked up in the town instead and bought a ham and cheese sarnie for lunch. Plus flapjack, in case cake opportunities were short later in the day.

Glastonbury tor is an ancient site associated variously with the legends of King Arthur, the fairies and the dead. Long a site of pilgrimage, its mythology has no doubt helped shape Glasto into the type of place it is now.

The town lay under a pall of incense, with plenty of independent shops selling crystals, spiritual books and clothing. A "free Gaza" demonstration respectfully distributed leaflets while surrounded by various street musicians. Glasto is a very particular place, and I hadn't been there before, but it clearly has an extremely strong sense of community. The main street was sociably packed with long benches, and I ate my sandwich on one whilst people watching.

Lots of colourful shops. The clothes ones also sell very colourful clothing. Glasto fashion is rather unique, with bright stripes and ethnic jewellery in evidence everywhere you look.

The view from my lunch bench. Nice flowers, pretty church, and a chap kindly serenading us all on his guitar.

From Glasto, we headed onwards to the City of Wells, adding a few confused miles to our route courtesy of some road closures. Again, never been to Wells. It's funny how you don't really visit places on the doorstep until you get on a bicycle. Wells is, apparently, the smallest freestanding city in England. The only more compact city is the City of London, which kind of gets swallowed up in its surrounding metropolis and, I think you could therefore say, doesn't count. There wasn't too much to see in Wells apart from a huge cathedral school (the cathedral being what makes it a city) and the cathedral itself. Which was suitably impressive. It looked like you could have fitted most of the population inside.

However, it was also quite close to Bath, and it was now about four o clock. I was keen to get to the hotel and check in after what had been a long day. Luckily, the last five miles were pretty much downhill all the way, and as I sped down to Bath through a 20mph zone, a couple of yellow jacketed civilians teasingly waved a handheld speed camera at me, and smiled. I don't think they got my registration though.

It was nigh on 1700 when we rolled right into the heart of Bath, to the city centre Travelodge, where reception advised me that my booking was at the central Travelodge. Which is different, apparently. They sent me another half mile up the road; I booked in, charged electricals and washed kit, and headed out to see Bath while the daylight lasted.

Numbers for the day. I'm tempted to make no further comment but should probably confess that I think the max speed figure is a glitch. Although, I was pretty speedy down some of those hills, as our yellow -jacketed friends would attest.

The view from my hotel room. Propely impressed with the hotel: big room, nice outlook, central location. And about £45 in a costly city.

View walking into town; the traditional Bath stone buildings, here, filled with boutique shops.

The Roman Baths. I'd already had a Travelodge Shower, so didn't need to indulge.

Today's ride: 90 miles (145 km)
Total: 90 miles (145 km)

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Mark BinghamMy tent is freestanding, meaning it's not staked down and I can pick it up and move it without it losing its shape. However, I'm pretty sure the definition doesn't translate to a freestanding city. I googled it, but I'm still not sure I understand. Only 70 cities in the United Kingdom??
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1 week ago

Mark M.To Mark BinghamYes, I'm not sure that's quite what I meant. I mean, with a large enough digger, you could theoretically lift Wells, whereas it would be impossible in London because you'd never get your JCB into the centre. So it kind of holds true. But Wells is a settlement in its own right. City of London is really just a suburb of Greater London; it's more or less the historic 'square mile' which retains city status for administrative purposes. A little bit (though not exactly) like Vatican City is part of Rome. Wells is the smallest proper city, arguably, because it's a settlement in its own right - plus, largely unlike the City of London, it has the residents and essential infrastructure/ services that you'd expect to find in a city. 'Standalone', maybe. Make more sense? 🙂

I'm not sure whether you have the same distinctions between cities, towns, villages etc in the US, might be a uniquely British administrative thing. But not everything big qualifies as a city over here. Taunton isn't, for example, despite being home to council services for the area; and the entire county of Cornwall only has one city. Historically, you needed a cathedral to get over the bar.
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1 week ago