England and Ireland: England. Part 8: Bath

Bath, Somerset, England

One of the places I wanted to visit while we were in England was Bath. My dad had told stories of partying getting some R n R in Bath during his leave time while stationed at Polebrook in WWII. I wanted to go see!

We were so lucky that the places we wanted to visit and the geography we needed meshed so well!

Bath was only about 60 miles from Georgie's house, so bright 'n' early on Monday morning, she dropped us off at the car rental place.  The next adventure began.

OK.

Steering wheel on the wrong side of the car: uh-oh.  Gear-shift in my left hand: dang.  The narrowest roads on Earth: crap. Cars coming toward me on the wrong side of the road: Oh Sh*t!

To my credit, I did not run into any stone walls. I did not crash into any cars. I did not run into any person or other mammal. The paint job on the passenger side may not have been any better for the bushes on the left, and there was a ditch or two that threatened to swallow our car, but we made it safely to Bath, not in small part due to Cyn's calm demeanor while she sat shotgun, navigating and watching for ditch threats!

Bath is, of course, home to one of the world's most wonderful archeological sites: an intact ancient Roman Bath.  There is a wonderful museum integrated into the site, and it is full of Roman artifacts. The mineral springs still flow in. It is pretty cool. (warm, actually)

Here are a few pictues. Of course, you need to go yourself and take the tour!

There were statues around the top which were placed much later.

The lady, Minerva, herself! (And surely, one of her descendents behind!)

Shhhh!  I touched the water right in that corner.

The most interesting artifacts in my opinion were the small bits of lead on which people wrote to Minerva for help getting retribution for wrongs. If an item got stolen, for example, the citizen would write a curse on the lead, perhaps add a list of names of possible suspects, and throw the piece of lead into the river for Minerva to read and mete out justice to the wrongdoer.

Brocks Guest House was our first bed and breakfast of the trip. It is a pretty building in the block between the Royal Crescent and the Circus. In fact, it was built by John Wood the younger, who built the Royal Crescent!

Brocks Guest House:

Our room was on the top floor.

View from our window:

View from Trish and Cyn's window:

Photo by Trish

View from the Loo!

 The lobby/breakfast area:

Photo by Trish

The famous Circus:

 The Royal Crescent:

Photo by Trish

Other views of Bath:

The Bath Abbey

Public art in a park by the River Avon; Photo by Trish

Photo by Trish

In the evening, we took a "Bizarre Bath" tour which was a fun comedic walking tour. Our guide:

And we got some R n R in Dad's memory!

Photo by Trish

Photo by Trish

Cheers!

England and Ireland: England. Part 7: The English Countryside.

Oh, my! I apologize for my very slow blogging. Life just keeps interfering!

If you are late to the party, or missed a post along the way, please see my previous blogs of this vacation:

Part 1: Liverpool
Part 2: Stratford-Upon-Avon
Addendum: More photos from Liverpool & Stratford
Part 3: London Olympics, Women’s Basketball
Part 4: London Olympics, Men’s Basketball
Part 5: London Olympics, Beach Volleyball and Women’s Diving
Part 6: London Olympics, Equestrian Jumping


Which brings us to today, The English Countryside.

After we left Greenwich Park and the equestrians, we sadly had to retrieve our luggage and catch a train out of London. I think we all feel that we’d like to go back and see the city for itself. There just was no time to enjoy the city this time.

For those of you Anglophiles (or more specifically, Londo-philes), I leave you with this as we leave London behind.

Sad as we were to be done with our Olympic experience, we were very happy to be on our way to visit Georgie, my college roomie and good friend. She is an expat who has been living in England more that half her life. She has a beautiful home in a small village west of London. We were so pleased that she invited us to her home!

The next day we headed out to the countryside. Georgie was our chauffeur, and we are so grateful to her for showing us around. Our first stop was the awesome (in the true sense of the word) Stonehenge. It was magical and mystical, of course. I thought I wouldn’t post too many pictures, as there are probably millions of good photos of Stonehenge in the world, but what the heck, I was there, and these are mine!

I always have the strange thought that throwing my head back at an odd angle will make a better picture. :-/

We also stopped at Old Wardour Castle and learned a little about medieval life and English History. Cool stuff.

We stopped for lunch in a pretty village where we found a sweet bookshop and tea room. We enjoyed tea and rarebits. It was fun that the waiter brought a timer to help us decide when our tea had been steeped properly.

Photo by Trish

Photo by Trish

Photo by Trish

Photo by Trish

Trish and Cyn had ancestors from the area, so we visited a few of their home places. One was the village of Yeovil, where there happened to be a “Retro Fair.”  I expected a street fair type deal, but it was the community center filled with booths selling Vintage clothing and jewelry, a craft room, music outside on the patio, and the ubiquitous pub.

Photo by Trish

The highlight of the stop to Yeovil to me was the burlesque show at the Retro Fair. These women had some cajones to get up there and strut their stuff!

We went on to Salisbury Cathedral, a beautiful ornate Anglican cathedral as only the English can build.

Later we returned home and watched the Olympics on TV for a bit before hitting the sack.

To come: Driving Adventures and Bath!