Bygone Baths

On our first weekend with Mum and Aunt Lori we decided to take them out of London to experience the city of Bath, once the Roman epicentre of commerce and bathing. Bath has natural hot springs - the only site in Britain. To the Romans, those famous lovers of baths, these well-situated hot springs were a magnificent attraction. Combining Celtic and Roman gods, they dedicated their impressive bath complex to Sulis Minerva, throwing offerings and curses into the steaming waters for the deity's attention. Bath, called Aquae Sulis, grew as a town, and excavated burials have demonstrated that the cosmopolitan settlement was home to travellers and merchants from distant parts of the Roman Empire.

Bath's glamorous heyday came in the Georgian period. The town became England's most fashionable resort, where Society came to take the waters in the Pump Room, to dance and flirt at the Assembly Rooms, to gamble, gossip and promenade. The town was rebuilt, and became an architectural showpiece.
At the centre of the town is beautiful gothic church - Bath Abbey . It was founded in the 7th century, and then rebuilt in the 12th and 16th centuries. It is set near the river, and the tour buses of course! It made a great backdrop for beautiful pictures.
Now, Bath is a World Heritage Site, famous for both archaeology and architecture, and a new, somewhat-delayed thermal spa opened in 2006. We visited the Roman Baths museum, where the great bath, and adjacent baths made up the entire complex, and we got to walk around the Roman ruins and learn about life during the antiquities.
Syd and I just love delving into the history and spent a good amount of time listening to every single audio message. Bill Bryson, a best-selling author of humorous travel books, had audio commentary about the baths as I walked through, and I loved his insight the best!
Following that we had lunch in a great cafe called Clarke's (which Barb remembers the name of because of the shoe store), and then walked around the famous Pulteney Bridge over the river Avon...

and even managed to find a community garden!