Nearby, about 15 miles away, is the city of Bath. It is the 4th most visited city in England. It was founded around the Roman Baths built on the hot springs here. It is an incredibly beautiful city, which it should be, as this city was designed as the place to see and be seen.
The giant building behind us is actually a hotel.
This is the Plutney Bridge. There is only four others like it in the world, where they have shops lining either side of the bridge.
The shops on the bridge. You can't tell that you are on a bridge unless you look out the windows of the shops. The shops are tiny, barely any room for anyone to enter.
I was trying to take a picture of the bridge and right as I pressed the button, that pigeon landed in front of me.
We think the gold people looked a little bit like John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
The Bath Abbey, originally built around 757 A.D.
The "Great West Doors" of the Abbey.
Sometimes, if the workers were mad at their boss, they would put his likeness on one of the people climbing down to hell.
The inside of the Abbey. We weren't supposed to take this picture because a organ concert was going on at the time.
Opps :)
We toured the Roman Baths.
The dome inside of the entrance. You get an audio tour to guide you through all of the baths. When we went to get ours, the guy asked what language we wanted. Gavin said English, paused, then asked if they had America. The guy said "No, but we can slow it down for you". It made our day.
This is the view of the Great Bath. It was the main pool in the center. It was where a lot of the business deals and networking were done in those days.
During a refurbishment, they put statues of famous Romans around it. The one on the left bottom is of Caesar.
The Sacred Spring
This is the earliest date they have from the ruins. It dates to about 69AD.
This is a model of how they think the site looked during its prime.
This is part of a tombstone. They believe that the guy it belonged to was nobility because he actually had a tombstone and the angle of his face.
This is what is left of the entrance to the temple. There is a lot of debate on
Another tombstone.
A skeleton they found.
A stone tomb.
A mosaic tile floor from one of the bath rooms.
The bronze head of the goddess Minerva. This was from a statue of her that was placed near the temple.
This is the entrance to the temple. The steps on the right side are the actual steps leading into the temple.
People would leave prayers for the goddess Minerva on thin, lead papers. Several have been recovered. They were usually prayers to curse someone who had wronged them.
This is the Great Bath. You can see the water boiling and the steam coming off of it.
This is the spring overflow.
I look really unhappy here. I'm not sure why I wasn't smiling, but I really was having a good time.
I look happier here. :)
One of the steam rooms, I think.
This is where the hot spring comes into the pool. You aren't allowed to touch the water, since it's really gross due to the lead pipes and all, but you can feel the heat coming from it.
This was below the floor. There needed to be space between the floor and the ground because the steam was so hot.
This is the best preserved bath they found. The gray columns are new to help prevent the road from caving in.
After, we ate the the restaurant there called the Pump Room, which overlooks the Great Bath. We were sitting in the middle, right next the the piano player. He was really good.
We found out later, but there was a Jane Austen event going on in Bath that day (she lived there for 6 years and 2 of her novels take place in Bath). Several people were dressed up in Regency period costumes and we couldn't figure out why.
I had the most amazing sandwich.
This is the Therme Day Spa, where you can go play in pools filled with water from the hot springs, like the Roman Baths, but is much safer and cleaner.
A side street full of small shops and merchants.
This is one of the main streets. It was really crowded that day. Bath was designed to have the streets widen at the ends so as you look down, the street appears to be the same size all the way down, not narrow as it usually appears. Also, the sidewalks are really wide so that the women wearing their big dresses could walk along with their escort and still stay on the sidewalk.
We toured the Fashion Museum. The most interesting part was the exhibit on the dresses that Princess Diana wore, but they didn't allow pictures to be taken there.
These are all of the dresses of the year.
J. Lo's Versace dress.
This is the park in the center of the Circus. It's surrounded by curved row homes, forming a circle.
The row homes at the Circus. We looked up how much it would cost to live here, and a 1 floor flat for sale here was almost 400,000 pounds, almost $600,000.
This is the Royal Crescent. It's up on a hill, overlooking a huge park and most of the city.
The other side of the Pulteney Bridge. It's not as pretty on this side.
This is the drinking fountain by the Bath Abbey. The water is coming from his jug.
The Abbey at dusk.
We were going to head home, but decided to eat dinner before we left. Gavin had heard from several people that Bath had excellent Indian food. We wandered for a god 20 minutes, but being able to find a single place to eat that was still open. We eventually found an Indian place called the Eastern Eye and went in. We didn't know it at the time, but this place is really famous and considered one of the best there. Several celebrities have eaten there, like Johnny Depp :), Brook Shields, and a whole bunch of others. What's funny, is Gavin loves Indian food, or at least a couple of specific dishes of Indian food, and I hate it. However, I really enjoyed they food here and Gavin didn't so much.
On our way to the train station to go home, we noticed everyone gathered around the pub and we thought they were trying to get in. However, they were just waiting for a tour to start.
