Weekend in England: The Bath Edition

I had a great weekend in England with Shayna. We went looooads of places in just 2 days including:

• Town of Bath, home of the ancient Roman Baths
• Stonehenge, home of some rocks in a windy field
• Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare's birthplace and Tudor architectural mecca
• Warwick Castle, bad-assest castle in England (they had falcons!)
• Stow-on-the-Wold, Broadway and other Cotswold villages

In an effort to pace my photo editing and blogging fun, I'll be bringing you installments of our trip over the next week or so. Full photo album will be available here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/kerryanntomkie/England#

So we start with BATH!

Shayna and I rolled into Bath on Friday night and landed at the quaint, albeit cheesily painted hostel.

From England

The next day I got up early and tooled around the city, which was designed in one go by a father/son pair who definitely got it right. Every building is made of the same creamy stone that lends the city a warm, golden color. It was really amazing.

We visited the Roman Baths, an ancient complex built on a thermal spring. The English remodeled it in the medieval ages and again in the 18th century and it became a hub for the social elite and sickies looking to benefit from the mineral-rich water...or so the audio guide told me.

Parts of the baths that still look Roman-y:

Sacred Spring. No one swam here, they just prayed and sacrificed here. You can see it's a thermal spring, really warm (steam).

Main baths. Dudes swam here. Shayna makes a phone call to 1998 on the old-cell-looking audio guide.

Roman Baths

LOL. Me and some real native Romans. Side note: can anyone confirm that the Romans had jeri curls? I'm dubious. "Hey Titian! Let your sooooul gloooow!"

Englishy Looking Bath Places

Entrance. You know I love a good ceiling.

Pump Rooms. Popularized in the 1700s-1800s. If you read enough Austen, Elliot or Dickens, you'll run into someone who holidays in Bath and "takes the waters at the Pump Room". And therefore if you know me, you'll know I was pretty excited about this.

The pump!

"Taking the waters"! The water is from a thermal mineral spring so it's warm, and it tastes normal, with a little iron and suphur, basically Up North well water. Or, as the guy next to me said, "It tastes like blood. And it tastes hollow! Is hollow a taste?" Nope. It is not.

And that was our Saturday morning! From here we went on to Stonehenge, which you can read about in my next post. :)