Bath

A day trip to Bath this Sunday was a great escape from the city for me and Char, along with fellow escapees Clare and Joel...



This is the famous Royal Crescent, a row of neoclassical fronted town houses built in a very clever crescent arc.



And a beautiful picnic spot!



Joel found a heart-shaped crisp!



The flowers certainly think it's Summer, even if the weather has been a bit indecisive lately...



The Circus, a broken circle of terraced houses built in the same manner as the Crescent.





Bath's town centre, full of old and new works of art. Some more self-explanatory than others...



Hmmm, muscly rabbits?





Bath Abbey. Another cathedral...





The old entrance to the baths. A new spa has been built just down the road. However, at £22 a dip its not a quick pit stop on a busy day visit!

The old Roman baths are the real highlight - discovered in the late eighteenth century and excavated extensively...



The main central bath - unfortunately rather algae-ridden now, was once covered with an immense roof and crystal clear, with 40ºc water thermal spa water allegedly giving it health restoring properties. It currently sits well below ground level, as the street level has risen by over 4m over the 2 millenia since the Romans were in Bath.





It doesn't look too inviting now! You're not supposed to drink or even touch this water as it's untreated. We were too curious, like many other tourists, and dipped a fingertip in... it's very warm (and yes, we are OK).



Some colourful actors helped bring a bit of Roman feel to the place...



And the museum of artefacts was stunning.



Roman baths had a classic system based on rooms of differing temperatures.



A warm room - the caulderium - had an amazing underfloor heating system still evident today. The real floor sat on top of the pillars and hot air circulated beneath.



Then the frigidarium - a cold plunge bath to invigorate the body!



And this is the famous spring itself. Over a million litres of hot water bubbles up every day, from 3km underground. Dammed by the Roman engineers, it has been used for various purposed over the years. The brown staining on the walls shows the water level in the Middle Ages, much higher than the Roman level. Monks from the abbey helped to heal the sick, by sitting them in the niches in the middle of the photo immersed up to the neck in the water.



This is the overflow drain, a Roman construction still working perfectly to this day.



Now the water from the spring is pumped up to this fountain - in the originally named 'Pumproom'. It's available free of charge to visitors to the Baths. It's... 'interesting'!



A final wander along the River Avon - this is the famous Pulteney Bridge with shops along it.



One shop had a beautfully made selection of miniature dolls things... The scale is tricky but most items are smaller than a cm.








And Sally Lunn's buns are also famous, but no space for us. We had a yummy cream tea down the road instead... Then all that remained was to face the traffic home - as thousands of returning holiday makers jammed the M4 most of the way back to London.