Bath, UK

Hi all,

Time to catch up on a few of the sights in and around England. Cheryl came to town in early July and so we set off to Bath.

Bath is a beautiful little town in the western part of England. I would say it's most famous for the Roman Baths and the spectacular Bath Abbey.

This is a picture of the Roman Baths, Britain's only natural hot springs. I borrowed the following bit from wikipedia.

The archaeological evidence shows that the site of the Roman Baths' main spring was treated as a shrine by the Celts, and dedicated to the goddess Sulis. The Romans probably occupied Bath shortly after their invasion of Britain in 43 AD. In Roman times the worship of Sulis Minerva continued and messages to her scratched onto metal have been recovered from the Sacred Spring by archaeologists. These are known as curse tablets. These curse tablets were written in Latin, and usually laid curses on other people, whom they feel had done them wrong. For example, if a citizen had his clothes stolen at the Baths, he would write a curse on a tablet, to be read by the Goddess Sulis Minerva, and also, the "suspected" names would be mentioned. The collection from Bath is the most important found in Britain.

I think it's great that you can go down to the hot baths relax, have a tea, and curse your neighbors. Not that we did any cursing ourselves. Anyway the water was decidedly green and not all that inviting so we skipped out on actually taking a bath. Even Cheryl who is normally the first one into the water decided to pass.

I really liked the statues that were surrounding the baths, here are a few. Sorry they wouldn't let us up there to pose with them, which is probably a good thing.

Next we have Bath Abbey. Without going into details it's old, really old. Get some of the details here if you are interested. Cool place. A bishop in 1499 supposedly had a dream of angels crawling up to heaven and a voice telling him to restore the church which had fallen into ruins over the centuries. I find the crawling bit to be on the sketchy side, hello wings, not just for decoration. Anyway the restoration went as planned and it's truly a magnificent building. Cheryl and I saw a concert performed in there that night. Here are some pics of the outside.

Finally a picture of me waiting for some water. Did I mention it was on the cold and rainy side while we were there. Hence the light jacket in July.

Some of the other sights to see around town were the Pulteney Bridge that crosses the river Avon. Completed in 1773, is one of four bridges in the world that has shops along the full length on either side.

Another church, St. Michaels and St. Pauls Church.

Cool little street arch at Trim and Queen St.

Cheryl looking for a place to nap outside the royal baths. Understandable since she had flown all night into London from D.C. and then boarded a train to Bath. Unfortunately our bed at the hotel was only slightly more comfortable.

And finally on an entomological note, you know a city can't be bad when there are giant bees in the gardens.