High teas, hot springs and Jane Austen: Finding winter wellness in Bath

One of the springs supplies the stunning Roman baths, as reimagined by the Victorians who added some Roman statues. There, you can not only touch bubbling brooks of warmed water but also taste it. The flavour is slightly eggy - not quite as lovely as the eggs in saltwater we eat at Passover.

And around the corner is the jewel in Bath’s crown, the magnificent Thermae Bath Spa, which I had the privilege of visiting on a clear winter morning. I started on the top floor, where there is a roof top pool overlooking the city: I took a dip just as the sun was beginning to rise over the frosty landscape. The air was cold, the warm waters magnificent.

There is a selection of healing spaces on the middle floor, including saunas, steam rooms, an ice room and – my favourite – the Celestial Relaxation Room, inspired by Bath-based siblings William and Caroline Herschel who discovered the planet Uranus. Mosaic-tiled loungers are warmed up by geothermal heat and twinkly lights mimic stars on the walls, while a film about space plays on a hypnotic loop in this dreamy, other-worldly room. 

The Celestial Relaxation room at Thermae Bath Spa.[Missing Credit]

And for a relaxing swim, the ground floor boasts the stunning Minerva Bath, which uses cooled-down spa waters with a touch of chlorine added. 

The first two weeks of February is Bath ReBalance festival – but wellness rituals come in handy any time of year (especially if you are a traumatised and tired Jew). I tacked a sound bath, across the road from the Thermae Bath Spa, at the Soul Spa onto to my trip. A sound bath doesn’t involve any watery immersion; instead, your body is bathed in the sounds of different tunes that come out of singing bowls and chimes. Each different sound seems to fix on, and hopefully relax, a different part of your body.

Food is, of course, an important facet of well-being. I had a stunning French meal at Chez Dominique and – in true Jane Austen style –a delicious afternoon tea at my charming hotel, the Roseate Villa, which is close to all the shops but on a lovely quiet street.

High tea in Bath, à la Jane Austen.[Missing Credit]

Bath is perhaps best known for its relationship with Jane Austen, and this year has been especially significant for fans of the novelist as it's been 250 years since her birth. Austen-inspired balls draw tourists to the city every year; such is the demand for them that this year there were three.

I enjoyed visiting the Jane Austen Museum at one of the places she lived in the city. It’s a little twee with its waxwork models and staff clad in Empire dresses, but it also tells a very different story to the ones of her books. She was the relatively impoverished family member, the spinster her relations looked down on after a failed romance. For fans of her novels, it makes you realise a deeper dimension to the often-acerbic writer: her novels really were wish-fulfilment.

The romantic Bath of Jane Austen's novels endures more than 200 years on.[Missing Credit]

But walking around the stunning architecture of the city is almost enough to make anyone dream they are in a romance novel. There's a reason why people have flocked to Bath for thousands of years – I’m just surprised it's not busier. We may now have antibiotics and modern medicine to help us with so many ailments, but there is still something special – something healing – about a visit to Bath. Even if it fails to mend your aching limbs or cure a broken heart, walking these beautiful streets and dreaming of Mr. Darcy can prove awfully cleansing for the soul.