As we live in South Wales, We started in Bristol and headed towards London. The route is modular so you can do as little or as much of the route as you want. I covered Day 1 in Bristol, heading towards Bath in a previous post, here - Day 1 of the Great West Way road trip. Day 3 will be posted soon, but onto day 2 here.

Day 2 Bath To Devizes

Bath

We stayed last night at the Roseate Villa Bath, a beautiful small boutique hotel a short stroll from the heart of Bath. For breakfast, there was a choice of continental dishes including gorgeous Greek yoghurt with compote in cool little Kilner jars, scrumptious pastries that were super flaky, freshly squeezed juice in cute little bottles, including an excellent orange juice,  a selection of cereals including granola and muesli, and fresh fruit, including poached pears (something I have never seen at a breakfast buffet).

We also had a choice of a cooked to order breakfast. Options included a full English breakfast with Wiltshire bacon, Eggs Benedict, blueberry pancakes and more.



I went with the avocado on toast with mushrooms which was delicious and seasoned to perfection. Service again was exemplary, Jean-Luc is a true asset to this establishment, nothing was too much trouble for him. The Roseate Villa has a TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence and also has recently been awarded a TripAdvisor Travellers Choice Award as one of the top 25 hotels for service in the UK!  Service was top notch, and never obtrusive, instead, welcoming, informative and warm. We would definitely return!

So with heavy hearts, it was time to check out and onto our first stop of the day, The Romans Baths. 


The Roman Baths take you back 2000 years to the days when Bath was a spa town and people visited to bathe in the medicinal waters and drink the mineral-laced water. 



In the Roman Baths, you can find out about the history of the baths, interact with the actors helping history come alive and drink the water from the water fountain.

You cannot bathe in the water anymore, unfortunately.  It's well worth listening to the informative audio guide which is free and available in a number of languages. Ticket prices for adults start at £14.40 off-peak and if you are a lover of history, it's a must-do in Bath. The Roman Baths is a great day out with kids as well, for more ideas of what to do in Bath with kids, check out this post.



From the Roman Baths, we took a short walk to Nicholas Wylde Jewellers. 



This bespoke boutique jeweller was recommended to us by the Great West Way team. Nicholas Wylde Jewellers has been in Bath for 31 years and there is also a branch in Bristol. On our visit, we were lucky to meet the man behind the shop - Nicholas Wylde, who gave us a tour of the workshop. 


Nicholas Wylde Jewellers sells a range of gold and silver jewellery and a big part of their business is the bespoke design service, where they make on average 30 bespoke pieces made for individual clients a week. 


We were privileged to take a peek into their workshop and see the different processes that go into making a piece of designer jewellery, from the sketching of the design to the CAD design on the computer, to a ring being set with diamonds.


Everything is completed to the utmost quality and high-level specifications from maker jewellers that have trained for years to get to this level.



Nicholas Wylde Jewellers is also know for its Wylde Flower Diamond jewellery unique to them. The Wylde Flower Diamond is special because it has 84 facets (cuts) in the diamond. This makes the diamond super sparkly as it has 24 more facets that a normal brilliant cut diamond. If you look closely you can see the flower design in the diamond. The diamonds are ethically sourced and cut by a company in the heart of the Antwerp Diamond Centre. Each diamond is also certified by the International Gemmological Institute too so you know you are getting a quality diamond.



I must admit I did drop a little hint to Mr W, as after all surely a lady with a website called The Diary Of A Jewellery Lover deserves a diamond every now and again don't you think? Maybe he will buy me a precious Wyld Flower Diamond - watch this space!


When we finished at Nicholas Wylde Jewellers, it was time to meet Nigel, one of the guides at Around And About Bath for a walking tour of the centre of Bath. I was really looking forward to this, as although I have visited Bath a couple of times a year for the last 25 years I have yet to go on a walking tour of the city.

Around And About Bath provide small tours of Bath and the South West of England, and their tours focus on history, heritage and quirkiness. 


Nigel our guide was such an enthusiastic and happy chap that you could tell he really loves living in this amazing city. 

On our tour, we found out about the Circus - the area in the centre of Bath with Georgian houses which was the place to see and be seen. Nigel demonstrated how if you stand in the centre of the Circus and clap then it echos all around. A neat little trick. 



Nigel also took us to a couple of areas of Bath that I didn't know existed, such as the Bath Botanical Gardens and a small Georgian garden meticulously recreated for people to visit. So many hidden gems in Bath and the tour was very informative and fun. 


Our last stop was the Assembly Rooms, this grand building was the centre of society dances in Bath in the 18th century. Jane Austen would have danced there in all her finery. It was a place to be seen. Nigel told us that at the end of the night though in the warm environment the makeup would have run down their faces - can you imagine the sight? 


Nigel also showed us old Putney Bridge, a beautiful bridge from the front but dirty and unloved from the back, but again only the facade mattered in Georgian times.  Bath was the place where appearances mattered for sure! 

We can highly recommend Around And About Bath for a tour of this historic city with a few surprises along the way. Check out their other tours too, I don't think you will be disappointed.




Now it was time for lunch. Koffman and Mr White's is a French brasserie-style restaurant around the corner from Bath Abbey.

The dining room here is fresh and modern in style and is a good place to have a special lunch or dinner with a French chic air. Service was confident but welcoming and not stuffy like you can get in some upmarket French restaurants. 

Mr W ordered a starter and a main, a French onion soup and a vegetable cassoulet and I ordered a main and a dessert, a curry and a pavlova. 



I honestly thought the French onion soup was the best I have ever tried. The soup was made with a rich broth of beef stock, plenty of sliced onions, large slices of French bread croutons and a mountain of gruyere cheese. An excellent bowl of soup for a hearty lunch. 


The curry was described as "The Connaught’s coq and shrimp curry, fresh mango, ginger, buttered rice". It was a good curry, very mild though and I would have liked some more spice.  

Mr W. vegetable dish was similar to a bean casserole and he says he enjoyed it!

The dessert - a tropical pavlova, was excellent! With mango ice cream, slices of mango, kiwi fruit and pomegranate, it was sweet, delicious and moreish. Highly recommended.

Lacock

So it was time to get in the car and onto our next stop, Lacock, home to Lacock Abbey.  Lacock is a village about a 35 to 40-minute drive from the centre of Bath and 3 miles south of Chippenham. It is owned almost entirely by the National Trust and attracts many visitors due to its unspoiled appearance.  

As well as the abbey, Lacock is home to the Fox Talbot Museum, a photography museum that discusses William Henry Fox Talbot who is famous for his contributions to the invention of photography. We didn't have time to visit unfortunately but it looked an interesting stop along the Great West Way. 



Admission to Lacock Abbey and the Fox Talbot Museum is £16 for adults and £8 for children, National Trust members get in for free. I recommend bringing some change for parking as the ticket machine did not take cards.

Devizes


So our last stop today was to Devizes, a 20-minute drive away, where we would be staying that night. The property in Devizes was rather special as it was next to a canal at Devizes Marina.










Devizes Marina is based on the Kennet & Avon Canal. It's a peaceful location and the new lodges we stayed in are well appointed and in excellent condition. 


The decor in creams and browns was simple and chic and the lodge we stayed in could sleep four easily in two bedrooms, one twin and one double. There was a separate bathroom and an ensuite shower room and toilet to the master bedroom.

The kitchen had everything you could need to make a meal including a full-size cooker, small dishwasher, fridge and freezer.  There was an outside terrace and a hot tub was a great touch! Unfortunately, as it was super cold, it did take a long time to heat up and wasn't ready in the evening so we had to go without our hot tub experience but I bet it would be lovely in the summer. 



So that night, after a hectic day we decided to stay in and cook. 





Catch our day 3 on the Great West Way soon, where we visit Wadworth Brewery, as well as take a walk on the North Wessex Downs. 

* AD thanks to the Great West Way for inviting us on this press trip

When you first start blogging, SEO is often the last thing on your mind, but as you progress you realise how essential it is.

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is important as it can drive people to your blog. Here’s a beginners guide to SEO for those just starting to learn about it.

So what do you need to know as a beginner to SEO?

Use Relevant Keywords - Do Some Research

Have you ever seen website owners and bloggers talking about doing keyword research? This is what they are talking about. You need to do the research on which keywords will work best for you. Make a list of potential keywords and then use a keyword research tool to identify new ones that may work for you. Google Keyword planner is one that is free. You will end up with a group of keywords that are very similar in meaning that you can utilise to make your content as SEO friendly as possible. You will want to check out their search volumes and work out which ones are a priority.

Optimise Your Content

What do I mean about optimising your content? If you want to make sure your content is naturally readable but also containing those keywords you’ve researched. Don’t focus too much on the volume of the keyword as you may interrupt the natural flow of the text. Just weave them in as naturally as possible.

You will also want to use headings and subheadings, images with alt text. Make sure they are optimised completely to ensure you are getting the best from your SEO efforts.

Build Some Links

If you’re a blogger, you will probably find that you are often contacted by people looking to build or swap links. This is because link building is vital to driving visibility for those competitive keywords you have been researching. However, link building can also hurt your visibility too - you need to be careful about how you do this. You want Google and the other search engines to be aware of your importance so it is important to follow their advice if wanting to do it all above board.

A great way to build links is to utilise stuff like business directories - getting your company listed on these with relevant keywords is great for helping you to rank highly on search engines. It may also be worth speaking to those you already have existing working relationships with - they may be able to offer you a quality link, perhaps in the form of a testimonial on their site. Naturally linking to other bloggers can help build your link profile too and producing great quality content people will naturally link to cannot be overlooked.

These are just a few things I have learned along the way when it comes to SEO. I find that Search Engine Optimisation is something you are always learning as things can change so quickly. It is important to keep yourself abreast of any updates. As I mentioned, I’m always learning so I’ve asked some of my favourite bloggers to share their SEO tips too - did you know any of these? If you own a business and want to improve your websites SEO, then it’s useful to research agencies like click.co.uk, so you can gain expert advice.

Tina Bailey - Girl Gospel
Download Yoast to Wordpress and don’t publish a post until both lights are green! It’ll remind you to do all the stuff you forget. (Like alt tagging images, internal links, using enough keywords etc). https://www.girlsgospel.com

Kacie Morgan - The Rare Welsh Bit

Clean your broken links. Use a broken link checker like www.brokenlinkcheck.com to search for broken links on your website, and then correct each link manually. Nobody likes a bad website experience and your blog will perform much better in search results if you don't have any broken links.
- www.therarewelshbit.com

Erica Knight - The Incidental Parent

Make sure you use alt tags on your photos
www.theincidentalparent.com

Emma Reed - Emma Reed.net

Include internal links on every blog post in order to keep the reader on your website. https://emmareed.net

Jade Lloyd - The Parenting Jungle 

Use a Keyword research tool like KeySearch when picking your Keyword, and don’t forget to fill out the Metadata description, it pays to take your time and do it when you first publish a post rather than having to go back over things at a later date. and don’t forget the content! Write your own unique posts and don’t cut and copy information. www.theparentingjungle.com

The Halcyon Years 
Make sure you use headings such as H2, H3 or H4 for the titles within your post as this will help Google identify keywords when it's crawling your page Emma www.thehalcyonyears.com

Christy Bruckner- Welshmum

Periodically going back and updating your older work is great for SEO. Google likes things to be up to date and relevant. Make sure you add a line to the copy saying "Updated on a date". www.welshmum.co.uk

So here is a beginner's guide to SEO. I hope these tips help you improve your SEO skills.

*Collaborative post

With so many regional food traditions in the UK, here, with the help of Seaham Pub, Seaton Lane Inn, County Durham, we take a brief look at some of the country’s weird and wonderful local dishes and how they came to be.

Pease Pudding

People from the North East love their food, especially their local specialities like pease pudding.

Don’t let the appearance of this savoury staple of Northumberland deter you from giving it a go, and certainly don’t say pease pudding’s name in vain in a Newcastle pub!

Made by boiling legumes (a mixture of peas, lentils, chickpeas and varied beans) then mixed with water, salt and spices into a paste. Usually paired with a joint of ham or bacon and sandwiched this is the much-loved pick-me-up and the Geordie version of caviar.

Although its origins aren’t exactly known, it is said that before potatoes arrived in the British Isles, pease pudding was one of the main filler for many dishes but we just loved it that much we decided to keep it going in many industrial areas and still to this day!

Pea Wet

Straight out of a chip shop comes this questionably-sounded addition to your sandwich that probably shouldn’t be uttered outside the walls of Wigan. Waste-not, want not in this part of town, as the reduced liquid left behind from the mushy peas gets poured onto pies and other delicacies and used primarily as a condiment. What would most likely get thrown into the waste bin is a delicacy in Wigan, and probably only in Wigan.

Eton Mess

A more appealing inclusion to follow the aforementioned comes Eton Mess, which is made up of strawberries, cream and smashed meringue. Believed to have originated at Eton College in the 1930s in the school’s tuck shop, the dish is served at the annual cricket match against the pupils of Harrow School but is now recognised as a nationwide dessert. ‘Mess’ may refer to the appearance of the food, owing primarily to the broken meringue that makes up the majority of the meal.

Chicken Tikka Masala

This may come as a surprise to some however this is a perfect illustration of the way us Brits absorb and implement external influences into our culinary landscape. Historically, tikka’s origins lie truly in India. The word translates to “bits”, referring to the chunks of chicken we eat today, that are marinated in yoghurt and spices before being cooked over charcoal on skewers in a tandoor oven. There is the counter argument that we can all sympathise to that this is merely an adaptation of a foreign dish already in circulation, but if a painting was enhanced and added to would that make it that same original painting?

It was only in an Indian restaurant in Glasgow, when a customer declared their wishes to have their chicken tikka smothered in a sauce as it was ‘too dry’, when the dish that would go onto become Britain’s most popular dish was born.

Stargazy Pie

Not for the faint-hearted, this unusual dish, called Stargazy Pie,  hails from a small fishing village in Cornwall called Mousehole. Made from a variety of different fish but primarily pilchards, the name stems from the heads of the fish protruding through the pastry crust appearing to be ‘gazing at the stars’, if you will, while their bodies are skinned and boned and smothered in a creamy sauce.

In fact, legend has it that on December 23, every year, the Cornish village celebrates Tom Bowcock’s Eve. Back in the 16th century, when frightening storms hit the coastline and the main source of food was from the sea, fishermen weren’t able to land their catch due to the extreme conditions, but one man – Tom Bowcock, stepped forth and landed enough to feed the whole village, thus filling several pies with several types of fish. Local pubs now serve the dish for free on this day to immortalise this tradition.

There’s a good chance you’ve tried one or two of these, or all of them if you’re a seasoned and brave sampler. There are many more out there, so get out and start exploring!

* Collaborative post 

Chicken tikka masala  image Sriyarao22

The Great West Way is a new 125 touring route between London and Bristol based on ancient roads. The route goes through some of the UK's most beautiful villages, historic towns and magnificent cities and is rich in history and culture. 

As we live in South Wales, we did the route in reverse, starting in Bristol and headed towards London. That's the beauty of this route, you can start at either end, or even in the middle, hop off to explore the places along the way and then hop back on to your next destination. 

For lunch, we went into the centre of Bristol and stopped by at the Prince Street Social. This restaurant and bar situated opposite the Bristol Hotel has a cool modern vibe and serves an eclectic menu. Lunch included such treats as a fish finger sandwich and pulled pork burger to a vegan club sandwich and vegetable crisps.

At the Jane Austen Centre, you are greeted with the costumed guides who weave stories of Jane, her family life and her time in Bath. 

It was interesting to find out that Jane wasn't famous until after her death. When she was alive her books weren't published under her name but with the credit 'by a lady'. 



The Jane Austen Centre is worth visiting if you are Jane Austen novice but have an interest in her life. It's a small museum so plan to spend an hour or so there. You can try on the clothes that used to be worn in Jane's day as well which is a fun five minutes! You can also have afternoon tea in the tea room attached. Tickets cost £12 for adults, but if you visit before midday and book online you can make a small saving on the price.



Then it was time to check in to the hotel for the night. A short walk from the centre of Bath is the Roseate Villa, a well-appointed boutique hotel with its own parking. After a warm welcome by the receptionist, we were shown to our room. 



When we got to the room, the welcome plate was a nice surprise - macaroons, my favourite!

The room was luxuriously appointed and generous in size, and with the orange and check furnishings had a slightly Scottish feel. 

With a picturesque view over Henrietta Park, the Henrietta dining room makes a lovely place to take afternoon tea. 

It's a grand room but the service wasn't stuffy, in fact, it was informative and welcoming from Caroline the manager and Jean-Luc the waiter, who were rightly proud of the quality of the food.

You have a choice of 18 loose leaf award-winning teas followed by freshly cut sandwiches and an array of beautifully presented dainty cakes. 



The sandwiches included a variety of vegetarian and non-vegetarian options, such as egg mayonnaise and salmon and were fresh and tasty.

The scones were warm and simply delicious accompanied by strawberry jam and Cornish clotted cream. There is also an option to have a glass of champagne but we declined on this occasion.