byChrisWhite – 2018

ex·pec·ta·tion: a strong belief that something will happen or be the case in the future; a belief that someone will or should achieve something.

They say a person’s expectations can be the difference between seeing the silver lining or simply being blinded by the storm cloud. If you aim too low, you run the risk of everyone staying indifferent; aim too high, and you risk leaving everyone just a little deflated. Somewhere in between, there’s a delicate harmony, a sweet spot that only the keenest of souls can locate. Managing people’s expectations is, therefore, an art, and perhaps the ultimate secret to success.

Now, if you’re wondering why I’m going on about expectations, it’s because it leads me directly to Bath, England, a place that makes you rethink your expectations, reset them, and then toss them altogether like last night’s fish-and-chips wrapper. When I first arrived in Bath, I had a mind brimming with vague ideas, each one informed by snippets of history, a glance at an old Jane Austen novel, or perhaps an errant reference to Roman baths. But, like most travelers, I expected the sort of experience that’s perfectly packaged, not unlike a McDonald’s burger, palatable and slightly predictable.

Bath, however, is no ordinary burger, more like a rich beef Wellington, flaky with an unexpected crunch, laced with the oddest of spices that leave you pondering the meal for days to come.

The drive into Bath alone sets the stage, winding through the Cotswold’s, where the limestone hills seem to glow with a pale golden hue, almost as though the sun itself had decided to linger just a bit longer in this part of England. They call it Bath Stone, and every house and cottage, be it modest or grand, wears its mantle with pride, each façade a tribute to a heritage that’s steadfastly cherished. The city has mandated that all new constructions must use this same Bath Stone, and there’s something admirably stubborn about that, an insistence that the modern be dressed in the robes of its elegant, 18th-century past.

Bath is a storied place, older than just about anything we might stumble upon in our daily American lives, a land that has survived kingdoms and empires, from the Celts to the Romans, and later to the Saxons. Bath even had its share of medieval kings, with Alfred the Great himself laying claim. If you’re prone to fancy tales, you might even conjure up visions of King Arthur battling the Saxons here, on some misty morning long ago, all the better if you imagine it while standing on the very stones worn smooth by centuries of footsteps.

Ah, but there are other sights to behold beyond the Roman baths and their steamy pools. The Holburne Museum, for one, with its grand Palladian façade standing at the end of a stately avenue. It’s the sort of place where you can almost imagine Austen herself, parasol in hand, musing over the world of men and manners. They say she walked there often, setting parts of “Northanger Abbey” amidst those same grounds. If that isn’t reason enough to visit, there’s also the splendid collection of art by Gainsborough and Guardi, names that carry a weight that the average traveler may not recognize but whose works are sure to charm anyone with a pulse.

But Bath’s crown jewel has to be the Royal Crescent. There’s something audacious about its architectural grandeur, a sweeping crescent of Georgian houses, perfectly symmetrical, standing as testimony to an age that prized balance and beauty in every detail. John Wood the Younger (an architect who clearly inherited his father’s skill and perhaps his taste for theatrics) designed it between 1767 and 1774, with an eye toward impressing all who beheld it, which it does with aplomb. The Ionic columns, the Palladian flourishes, they all speak to a world that believed in appearances, in a grandeur that wasn’t always earned but was always displayed with great conviction.

Just down the way is the Circus, designed by John Wood the Elder, a roundabout so elaborately adorned with classical motifs that it almost makes you forgive the inherent confusion of roundabouts themselves. You can almost picture old Wood, squinting at a sketch of Stonehenge while muttering to himself, determined to pay homage to the Druids while also ensuring that no self-respecting horse-drawn carriage would lose its way.

And there’s Bath Abbey, that venerable cathedral whose fan-vaulted ceiling defies both time and gravity, soaring above the heads of tourists like a net of stone lace. Built, rebuilt, and rebuilt again, it’s a testament to persistence and resilience, two qualities that any traveler to Bath will need in abundance, especially if they’re trying to navigate the labyrinth of narrow streets after one too many pints of ale.

Speaking of ale, it’s here that I confess to a slight detour, the result of an absent-minded packing effort that left me without a razor. The solution? An impromptu visit to New Saville Row, a small barbershop tucked beside Pulteney Bridge. The barber, a man whose age and experience seemed to have been passed down through generations, agreed to stay open late to give me a shave. Thirty minutes later, I found myself reclined in a well-worn chair, swaddled in a hot towel. As the straight razor grazed my skin, I wondered why I’d ever settled for less, the luxury of it all, the ritual. It felt fitting, somehow, for a city like Bath, a place where the past seems forever layered over the present.

If Jane Austen were here today, she might pen a line about expectations and surprises, something droll and timeless, no doubt. When I arrived in Bath, I expected a city of stone and steam, of old Romans and older abbeys. What I found was far richer: a city that’s at once preserved in amber and yet wonderfully alive, bustling with the energy of both locals and travelers, each caught up in their own discovery of this place called Bath, or, if you’re feeling properly English, “Baath.”

And so I leave you with this: visit the baths, yes, but don’t stop there. Walk the streets, peer into the shadows of the crescents, linger by the river Avon. Peel back the layers of this place, each one tells a story, and none of them are quite what you expect. As for me, I came with modest expectations, a simple curiosity. But Bath, well, it trounced them, and then some.