Bath's Twin Towns
...and partner, sister and others
Bath (pop. 80,000) has four Twins:
Alkmaar, Netherlands
(75,000)
A few miles north of Amsterdam, which it resembles in miniature because of its many
canals, bridges and waterside lanes. Famous cheese festival held on Fridays in the summer.
Alkmaar
web site
Trip report
Braunschweig, Germany (260,000)
East of Hannover, and a major regional centre of Saxony. A large university and
manufacturing town, known in English as 'Brunswick'.
Braunschweig
web site
Trip report
Kaposvar, Hungary
(75,000)
A delightful and historic town south of Lake Balaton. Thermal spas in use and being
further developed (only discovered 30 years ago). Twinned with Bath since 1989
Trip report
Aix-en-Provence, France
(150,000)
Provence, southern France. Ancient town with many old buildings and a historic
centre. Home of many high-tech small industries. Birthplace of Paul Cezanne. As Bath is about to do, Aix has just redeveloped its historic thermal spa
Trip report
Bath also has a Partner:
Beppu, Japan
On the east coast of volcanic Kyushu, the westernmost island of Japan, this tourist's
delight of a spa town boasts boiling mudbaths of various colours!
and a Sister:
Manly, Australia
Virtually a suburb of Sydney, this beach resort was supposedly named by a Bath
man on Capt Philip's arrival in Australia in the 1770s
Bath is linked in various ways with
other towns. Bergen, in Norway, has no official ties but like Bath is a World Heritage city.
It is also part of a 20-city European environmental forum, whose members include Venice and
Vienna in addition to smaller places such as Delft (Netherlands) and Hamm (Germany). Finally,
there is Bath's unique position as the home of Britain's only thermal springs, which makes it a counterpart
to virtually anywhere with natural hot water: Rotorua in New Zealand for example.
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