Dear Friends,
I trust you are all enjoying the wonderful summer weather in Scotland!
SONAS Christian Holidays have recently completed another very successful holiday to Bath. It was led by two new Leaders, Geoff and Morven Hulks who I gather did a wonderful job over the week, big thanks to them. Here is a lovely report on the holiday.
Regards
Elsie Normington
Bath holiday report – Fiona MacKay
Bath is a captivating and beautiful historic city, and it’s easy to understand why it’s such a popular
destination for visitors from around the world. The city has so much to offer and we decided to start off our week on an open-top bus tour, which helped us get our bearings and discover the location of all the main attractions. It is, however, a surprisingly compact city and - as we were based in a central hotel – we then found it very easy to navigate and explore on foot.
Bath’s history is very much linked to water and most of our group visited the ancient Roman baths, whilst others enjoyed the city’s modern equivalent at the Thermae Bath Spa with its open-air rooftop pool. The Pulteney Bridge, which spans the River Avon, is an impressive structure and a popular spot for photographs, and a starting point for boat trips, riverbank walks and also for ambles along the nearby Kennet and Avon Canal towpath.
A few of us “took tea” in the elegant surroundings of The Pump Room, which was the hub for grand society in Georgian times and features in some of Jane Austen’s novels - so we felt exceedingly posh! Most of our group visited the informative Jane Austen Centre, which helped us appreciate even more the talent and intellect of this much-loved author. And whilst there were some folk - who shall remain anonymous, they gave us much hilarity by dressing up in Regency period costumes! The Royal Crescent was a must-see destination with its impressive curve of stunning Georgian stone townhouses, and we stepped back in time to experience what 18th-century life was like in the Crescent by visiting No.1, a superbly restored townhouse
and museum. The highlight of the week, for most of us, was attending a lunch recital by the extraordinary Virginia Children’s Chorus (who happened to be staying in our hotel) as they sang their hearts out within the magnificent setting of Bath Abbey.
Bath offers an abundance of fabulous coffee shops with an astonishing variety of mouthwatering scones, cakes and pastries ... which proved extremely hard for most of us to resist. The temptation, however, of an
The Italian gelato shop was too much of a pull for one member of our group, who had to make repeated visits every evening!
We greatly appreciated and profited from the warm fellowship and friendship of everyone within our group and were particularly blessed to be led by Geoff and Morven, who were exceptional in their care and kindness and provided us with thought-provoking daily morning and evening devotions. We also hugely enjoyed having Elizabeth Mackie with us and were particularly captivated by her recounting some of the travel adventures and challenging circumstances she experienced with Andrew, her late husband, and the many instances of God’s leading and miraculous provision when they successfully ran Superb Choice Holidays for over 35 years.
We were immensely blessed during our week to explore a stunning city, stay in a comfortable hotel with very attentive staff, have amazing weather and all with wonderful company … but it just went by far too quickly!
