Christmas has well and truly begun in Bath this week.
Today the city's Christmas Market will open with 140 wooden chalets lining the streets around the abbey, while tomorrow sees the launch of an ice rink in Royal Victoria Park.
For the first time the market, where traders sell an array of handmade gifts, decorations and food items, will continue along Bath Street and have a presence inside Milsom Place. The market will be open daily until Sunday, December 9.
To mark the opening of the market, a lantern procession will take place at 5pm today, starting at the Holburne Museum which organises it and continuing through the city centre before finishing at Parade Gardens.
Supported by the Cobalt Trust and Bath Tourism Plus, workshops have been held in which local children and students at City of Bath College were invited to the Holburne to make their own lanterns based on the museum's ceramic collection.
Tonight visitors to the market will also get to enjoy Transient Graffiti, a project which will involve illustrations being projected on to the front of Bath Abbey and the Holburne. The projections have been produced by three local community groups in conjunction with award-winning digital media company, Suited and Booted.
Animators Elle Farnham and Bafta-award winner Emma Lazenby have been hosting workshops with the Holburne Association of Homeless Artists, Action On Hearing Loss educational day services and Bath and North East Somerset Council's youth services to design and produce the final animations.
Meanwhile, two tennis courts at the park have been transformed into an ice rink, with a café styled as a Bavarian log cabin, which will serve hot mulled cider and baked panettone.
Simon Smith, director of Excel Tennis, which is running the new attraction, said online bookings were already filling up many of the sessions.
He said: "We have been planning this for over two years now and it has been a monster project to try and get off the ground. We have had a huge number of setbacks and problems to overcome and to see it finally come to fruition is really gratifying. What's more, the support and enthusiasm we have received from people in Bath has been fantastic and we really appreciate it. We hope it can be an event for all of Bath to enjoy and welcome back again next year."
Bath on Ice will be open daily from 10am, until January 6. For further details and to book online visit www.bathonice.com or phone 07583 258688
For more information on the city's Christmas events, www.bathatchristmas.co.uk.
