One of Bath’s (many) small glories is the fact it’s so compact, meaning it lends itself to comprehensive autumn walks which easily take you around, out of, and back to it.
Along the way you’ll find amazing views, echoes of earlier ages, great places for children and dogs to let off steam, as well as a kind of edited highlights package of everything the city does spectacularly well: parks, architecture, museums, galleries, green spaces and places to stop for something to eat and / or drink.
Plus of course, nowhere is all that far from the hotel and restaurant, so whether you’re a local with an eye on a walk before or after lunch, or a visitor looking for daytime-diversion, you’re bound to be well-placed for some high-quality in-room rest, and restaurant delectation…
The Bath Skyline walk
A lovely way to soak up a lot of what’s best about Bath. This autumn walk will take you more or less an hour and a half, none of it all that arduous or uphill (save for one ascent at Bathwick Hill), and most of it surfaced and level.
It’s got the views, waterways and Georgian richness you’d hope for in any walking tour of the city, and is designed to be as easy to follow as it is to find.
If stretching your legs before or after a big meal seems like a good idea now, it’s arguably a part of human nature which hasn’t changed much in centuries. Because Bath has for a long time been a small city in the centre of lovely countryside, it’s traditionally been the kind of city in which people have sought out its opportunities for exercise, head-clearing and sense-satisfying.
Starting close to the Abbey, at Kingston Parade, you’ll be led along striking streets, through public gardens, close to the canal and up to Bathwick Fields, where the views both help give this walk its name and also explain why the city is classified as a UN World Heritage Site.
Rainbow Wood
A section of the Skyline path, near Claverton Down, is called Rainbow Wood; it’s particularly aimed at the young, and it gets its name because of how the woodland forms an arc shape at this point. (It’s also home to many striking mature beeches, some dating hundreds of years back to the area’s origins as a deer park.)
There’s a play area here, with a picnic area, balancing-logs, space for exploring and den-building, as well as traverse-ropes, a walk-on see-saw and wobble beams. Plenty of scope, in short, for the young to exercise their imaginations as well as their bodies.
Canal walk
We’ve mentioned before what a treat it is for a city to have such a lovely waterway at its heart, and this autumn walk is a great way to follow the Kennet and Avon Canal, while drinking in a lot of what makes Bath so striking and memorable, in particular its amazing bridges and architecture, represented by the likes of Pulteney Bridge, Great Pulteney Street, Sydney Gardens, Jane Austen’s house, Cleveland House and the pumphouse chimney.
The walk itself is only a couple of easy miles and, obviously, the time it takes will depend on how (and how often) you’re refreshing yourself along the way, whether you’re factoring in a picnic or exactly how much scenery-and-architecture marvelling you end up doing.
But it’s worth adding that, depending on your levels of interest and stamina, it’s an autumn walk which is capable of opening out into something much longer, the ten miles along the towpath from Bath to Bradford upon Avon, which includes, in addition to all of Bath’s wonders, some elements of the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty too (and clearly, the further you go, the greater the scope for any number of on-the-way tea rooms, craft shops, locks, barges and village pubs).
If you’re looking for weekend break away for an autumn walk in Bath, why not explore staying at the Queensberry Hotel, where we have a range of beautiful rooms to choose from. Get in contact with our team for more information.
