Bath

: The Grand Account :

Bath is the most complete Georgian city in England, and it knows it: a composition in honey-coloured stone, drawn in crescents and circuses across the slopes of the Avon valley. The Romans came first for the hot springs, the only ones in Britain; eighteenth-century society followed, and Jane Austen recorded the result with an unsparing eye. UNESCO protects the whole city, not merely its monuments, which tells you something of its coherence. Visitors of consequence have taken the waters here for two thousand years; the modern elite come for the same reasons, refined: architecture, thermal water, and a city built entirely for pleasure.

The road west is one of England's great drives: the M4 unspooling past Windsor and the Marlborough Downs to Junction 18, then the A46 falling south through a steep wooded valley until Bath appears below, all at once, in its bowl of hills, allow two hours and a quarter from central London. The Rolls-Royce Cullinan is the vehicle for it, devouring the motorway miles in silence. Your chauffeur times the descent for the morning light on the terraces, has the hotel expecting you, and, knowing Bath's Georgian streets were not drawn for modern traffic, handles every arrival to the inch.

The Roman Baths open at nine; be at the door, and you will have the Great Bath steaming almost to yourself. Walk up through the Circus to the Royal Crescent and take coffee at The Royal Crescent Hotel, set within the terrace itself. Luncheon at The Olive Tree, the Queensberry Hotel's Michelin-starred dining room, rewards restraint at breakfast. The afternoon belongs to the Thermae Bath Spa's rooftop pool: go at dusk, in the cooler months, when the steam rises against the city lights. Stay the night if you can; Bath after the day visitors leave is another city entirely, and a better one.