Bathtime

The temperature finally dropped a little – enough for us to splurge a bit and try out the Thermal Baths in Bath.  We miss our spa pool…

We decided we wanted to check out their Twilight Package, which involved a three-hour session in the pool complex and included a main course each at their café, plus the use of towel, robe and slippers.  We arrived in Bath a little before 4pm and did some more sightseeing before going in to the baths.  It really is a very beautiful town (although we were quite surprised, during a search for public loos, that the park had a £1.20 entry fee).

We finally started our spa adventure just before 5pm.  This meant we could soak in the pools for a while before eating at a civilised time and then warming back up in the water.  The facilities are pretty impressive; there are two large heated pools, one downstairs and one on the roof, plus a steam room with four different aromatherapy steam capsules.  We started with the roof top pool which had lovely views across the roofs of Bath in one direction, and out across the hills the other way.  The pool was very lovely, not too crowded, but it was ‘heated’ rather than ‘hot’.  Too warm for swimming, but not really soaking temperature – or not for us anyway.  It was still very relaxing, so we stayed for a while to enjoy the view before heading down to the steam rooms.

This was a whole new experience.  We had chilled down a little coming down the stairs from the pool, and the main area of the steam room was toasty warm.  We decided to check out the red capsule first.  A note on the ‘capsules’ – these were round glass rooms with a stone bench all the way around the inside.  Under the bench were lights and steam pipes that released scented steam into the capsule.  There was a notice outside in the corridor that said which colour light had which fragrance but we forgot to look before going in.

Right. Red capsule.  We opened the door and stepped in.  Siobhan nearly had a panic attack.  It must have been close to 50°C and 100% humidity – it felt like we were not breathing because our lungs didn’t actually register the air going in.  We sat down on the (hot) benches and gradually adjusted.  As Siobhan noted later, we must have been breathing some actual air because we didn’t pass out.

We only spent a few minutes in each capsule, rinsing of under a huge ‘rainforest’ shower in the centre between each capsule.  It really was something completely different, and the different scents were all lovely (for the record, red was sandalwood, green was eucalyptus and mint, purple was frankincense, and we can’t remember what the blue one was!).

From here, we went down to the basement pool, which was essentially like the rooftop one but without the view.  It turns out there is a properly hot pool in the complex but you can only use it if you are getting one of their (exorbitantly expensive) spa treatments.  Never mind.

Dinner was quite yummy – and quite surreal.  All the diners (including ourselves) were in the white robes supplied by the spa.  The tables and chairs were white plastic, the walls were painted white.  It felt like something out of a science fiction film.  It was also a little chilly as they had a couple of windows open and we were still in damp togs.  It did mean the water in the rooftop pool felt lovely and warm when we returned to it.

We finished off our evening with a return to the steam room to get fully warmed up before going home.