It seems like hundreds of bloggers have gone and 'done' Bath Christmas Market; we did have a quick look round but like the majority of locals, we avoid the centre of Bath like the plague when the market's on.
Our main trip into town was last Wednesday when our workplace held it's annual carol service in Bath Abbey.
It's not particularly exclusive though, pretty much every company, school and community group seems to hold a carol service in the Abbey!
"Jesus went into the temple and drove out all those who were buying and selling there"
Matthew 21.12
(The main market is held in the grounds of the Abbey, in the Abbey Churchyard)
I'm not really religious but even I can see the irony of Bath Christmas Market...
We did have a very quick wander around the market but after helping ourself to some of the free samples of sausages and cheese we headed to the only real reason we go to the market - the beautiful vintage set of gallopers owned by a friend of ours.
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You might have guessed from the many other blog posts I've written, that me and Andrew are huge fans of vintage fairgrounds. David Downs is a lovely friendly showman who owns several rides and his gallopers date back to around 1900 (and he's even more lovely because he gave us a free ride!). Incidentially, if you want to impress someone from the fairground, in the UK they're called 'gallopers' or 'a set of gallopers' and not a carousel - they're only called carousels outside the UK. Next time you spot one, take a look around the top of the ride, it'll probably say 'golden gallopers' or 'galloping horses' or something similar!
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Anyone else braved the crowds and shuffled around Bath Christmas Market?
I LOVE carousels (sorry, gallopers - thanks for the insider tip!). They are so magical. I am particularly excited this Christmas because T had a postal delivery of a package wrapped in tape which said "Carousel". No idea what's in it, but I'm guessing/hoping its for me because anything with carousel on the outside of the box has got to be pretty magical inside! xxx
ReplyDeleteOooh sounds exciting! I agree, it's definitely got to be something cool and magical inside :-) xxx
DeleteWow that ride looks magical. The same is true of the Christmas markets in York, there must be so so many bus loads of tourists that come down into the city that it was just an awful time to actually me there.
ReplyDeleteI did hear that on the first day of Bath Christmas Market, they had 200 coach-loads of people - with 50 people on each coach, that was an extra 10,000 tourists in the city centre (and that's not including anyone who came by car, bus or train!). It's no wonder lots of the locals stay away! :-) x
DeleteYour pictures really capture the magic.What camera do you have? I went to the Manchester markets but they were insanely busy.we had to decamp to a pub for a while!
ReplyDeleteThanks Sharon! I have a Panasonic Lumix GF5, which I'd definitely recommend, it's really easy to use and you can do so many things with it. The pics inside the Abbey were only taken on my phone though (as apparently we shouldn't really have been taking pictures, whoops...) :-) x
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