Bath Skyline ..

..walk.
A glorious day today from the off, perfect for another thing on my ‘to do’ list, the Bath Skyline walk. 
Most of the walk is on National Trust land so the paths and signage are all excellent as they have organised the walk.

It is in the SE of Bath starting up Bathwick Hill, not far from the city centre, much of the early part of the 6 mile walk is visible from Bailbrook, where Grace and John live, which is what you can see in the top extra nestling in the trees across the Avon valley. Above, to the right, you can see a part of Little Solsbury Hill and the hill to the left has the ‘caterpillar trees’ along the skyline in the hidden valley below them nestles Eda’s school. This bit of the walk was therefore of particular interest to us.
It being called the ‘Skyline’ walk it’s pretty obvious that you have to go up to walk around at a higher level. There were some steep paths especially though the woods but once up it was very pleasant walking through flower meadows between the woods and initially Bath Golf Course. Lots of butterflies today especially Meadow Browns and Speckled Woods. We also saw and heard buzzards.
The path continues around Claverton Down so passes the American Museum, visited on Sunday, and the University sports facilities.

We took a picnic but wanted to try to get a hot drink so we did a bit of a diversion to Prior Park landscaped garden. It’s National Trust so we could get in free. (The American Museum was a suggested refreshment stop but you have to pay the entrance fee to get a coffee!)
I’d wanted to visit Prior Park but I remember when the Trust took it on they stated they wouldn’t be providing parking. The house is now part of the Prior Park College but the view down to the ornamental bridge and pools with Bath behind is worth the visit as is the tea shed!
We had our sandwiches (ham, egg and lettuce) with hot drinks followed by shared orange and poppy cake.
To get out we walked right down to the bottom of the park which was quite steep, so of course we then had to climb up again to get back onto the Skyline path, not good on top of cake!

The climbs were pretty tough in several places and we certainly know we’ve done it especially as it ended up being 8.36 miles with the add on instead of 6 miles, but it’s good to discover a few new areas of this city.


In the bottom extra is the view down to the Palladian bridge from Prior Park house with the city behind showing Landsdowne Crescent and St Stephen’s church above between which is John’s mum’s house. 
The blip picture is our view of the city centre on our descent from Widcombe Hill to Smallcombe Vale near the finish of the walk, Bath Abbey is right in the centre. A little build up of cloud is putting the Royal Crescent above the centre into a band of shadow.


It’s a beautiful evening now and I’ve just been outside to watch 5 balloons flying over. Later there were 12 but they were too far off for a good picture. 
By the way I’ve swapped the pictures