Bath

Saturday I took a day trip to Bath, a smaller town west of London - about 90 minutes by train. I met my friends Laurie and Chad there and we spent the day exploring the Roman baths, the Jane Austen center and the rest of the town. It was a great place with loads of history (and some great modern shopping too!) and amazing architecture and scenery.





View of Bath from the train station. There are a lot of churches here - you can see the steeple and spires poppin up everywhere around the city.











With Laurie at the Roman baths. These date from something like A.D. 400 when the Romans settled here and made use of the only hot spring in Britain. The water is full of minerals and was thought to have healing powers in the 17th and 18th centuries. People would travel from all over to bathe and drink the water. There was so much history at these baths - it was amazing to think of all of the hundreds of years of people who have been here to bathe!






This is the Pump Room at the baths. It is a restaurant now and you can drink the hot springs water here. In Jane Austen's day, it was a social gathering place to see and be seen.










We watched a glass-blowing demonstration. This company puts copper oxide in the glass and the way it mixes with the minerals in the water, it makes an aqua color after it cools. All of the things they made were so beautiful (and so expensive!).






Me by the River Avon. In the background you can see one of the many churches. And off to the right, some of the old architecture of Bath.











A view of the outskirts of Bath from the rugby field. There are quite a few hils around so the houses are built in terraces (sort of hard to see here I guess). They also all use a similar sort of stone and the whole town looks the same.