Bath-ing Beauty(-ies?) - #749 and #750

25 August 2025

Since Roman times, many people arrive in Bath, England with healing waters on their minds. I was no different when my wife and I rolled into the Bath Spa train station from Paddington on Saturday afternoon of this August Bank Holiday long weekend.

Instead of touring the ancient Roman Baths or basking in the modern Thermae Bath Spa, though, I pre-booked the city's best aquatic experience: a 9am Sunday morning swim at The University of Bath's magnificent "Team Bath" Sports Village:

Outside of the main entry, but before the humble entry to a grand pool (click pics to enlarge)

While not an architectural showpiece building or spectator space like the Manchester Aquatics Centre (aka "the Wave") or the London Aquatics Centre, this is the perfect hard-core swimmers' pool:

You can hear my excitement as I videod and waited for the pool to open:

The pool is an eight-lane by 50 meter Myrtha pool, with a uniform depth of two meters. In addition to the massive scoreboard that was setup as a running time clock, there were synchronized pace clocks up and down the side of the pool.

There was one feature, one relatively new innovation that I wish I could have taken a picture of (but the lifeguards were vigilant about the "no pictures on the pool deck") - this pool had one of the flip-up bulkheads (see this Facebook post for apparently the first one installed in 2024 and some pictures here on the Myrtha site that show a variety of above-water angles). This bulkhead does what its name implies: when not in use, it lies flat, parallel to the floor of the pool; when "flipped up," it acts like any other bulkhead. This saves the hassle of pushing & pulling traditional bulkheads back and forth. As I understand, these also offer the ability to only flip up some lanes so you can have mixed lengths going at the same time.

As for my swim, it was glorious. I don't know how busy this place will be once school is in session, but I had both fast lanes all to myself for my 2,000-meter swim. There were a handful of other swimmers in the slow and medium paced lanes. While I'm still in a recovery/rehab practice mode with the bulk of the meterage being kick, drills and easy swimming, I couldn't help myself from pushing one fast 50!

And I wasn't too disappointed with the time (~33 seconds).

Beyond the pool itself, part of what I loved about this whole "sports village" were all of the inspirational quotes ...

... and recognition around the halls and walls of the great athletes who have trained here, not just in swimming (but those are the ones that caught my eye):

This became pool #749 on my #1001Pools ... a most excellent addition. When coupled with the 2.5KM largely uphill, but gorgeous walk with my wife from the center of town, it was a good morning of exercise.

The only dissappointment this weekend was that I would have preferred the University pool to be a milestone pool, but it was closed on the Bank Holiday. Thus, the far more humble, but entirely functional Bath Sports and Leisure Centre enters my list as pool #750 thanks to my 2,200-meter swim on Monday morning:

As for the dry side of Bath, my wife and I did what we loved to do in cities. Primarily, we walked, talked and ate. But, we also took in a Ralph Fiennes directed production of Shakespeare's As You Like It at the meticulously maintained Bath Royal Theater .... and then went decidely more lowbrow by watching "Freakier Friday" on Sunday evening at the nicest Everyman theater location we've ever been to. The tourist highlight was this ~2.5 hour historical walking tour with probably the best city guide (Jess) I've ever had.

Add in picture perfect sunny weather and we couldn't have had a better weekend!