16.08.12 - Bath, Day 2

(Bath, UK) - Walking around, the Roman Baths, Bath Abbey Tower Tour, and Trivia Night.

I scurry downstairs to the pub to have my free breakfast. I don't expect much, and I'm not disappointed. There's just a few cereals -- unfrosted flakes, muesli -- toast with various spreads, and Seattle's Best instant coffee. Really.

Bath so far has been amazing. The city itself is beautiful. Each one of its buildings constructed out of "bath stone" which gives the city it's uniform sandstone color.






After a bit of writing, Jordan shows up, excited to get to sight-seeing and I agree to go with him. Jordan's from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He's in his early twenties and when he goes back home he's going to be working for Haliburton, cracking shale, one of the most dangerous jobs this side of a crabbing boat. He's been to Paris only last week. He's been to Edinburgh to visit family. He's fairly well traveled and he's only in his early twenties. I'm twenty-nine, and this is only my second trip across the Atlantic Ocean. You could say that I'm somewhat jealous of him, but that jealousy only emerges out of respect for him. He's an ambitious guy and has a knack for artistic photography; his Olympia camera like his third eye dangles from his neck. Soon enough, it starts to rain, and like lightning an umbrella springs from Jordan's day-pack.

"Where to?" I say.

There is some talk and then we decide to find a point where we can observe the whole of Bath from the distance. We head north, out by the M4 (I think), and as far as the city limits before we decide to turn around. We'd been told there was a park over here, but we haven't been able to find it. Instead, we decide to take a detour back into town, along the River Avon and beside the rail system.

We make our way back to the town and walk around the Avon. I show Jordan some of the sights I'd seen yesterday. We see a boat going through the River Avon's manual locks.

The bath locks in use: they're manual!

This is the oldest house (1482) in Bath. It's called Sally Lunn's and it sells buns.

The Roman Baths

After a long-ish walk around Bath, we head to the Roman Bath houses in the center of town. These baths were uncovered in the 18th century, but were first built by Celts alongside a temple to the goddess Sulis. The old name of the town Aquae Sulis derives from this association. When the Romans showed up in the 1st century AD, they identified the goddess' shrine with Minerva and built this shrine and bath complex around the spring which bubbles up from the earth. After the Romans left England in the 5th century, the baths fell into disrepair and became flooded. In the 12th century, the Normans built Queen's Bath near the original spring. There was, then, Victorian restoration of the baths, and then later restoration and the building of the complex currently used by tourists.

No, I didn't drink the water.

This head is from a statue of Minerva that would have sat at the center of the temple, beside the hot spring. It's six-times gold plated, which means that the statue had underwent restoration even during its heyday. It's a priceless artifact now, and they keep it behind security plastic.



The statue was housed in the temple, located in what would have been the central promenade at the baths, right beside the natural spring. The area is now enclosed in Victorian restorative efforts, but you can see what it looked like in the photo above.

A Roman drain...

This was the hot room. The hot water flowed through these pillars and heated the floor (no longer there). It would have been so hot that if you tossed some water on it, it would have created steam, like in a modern sauna.

The Bath Abbey Tower

We lingered in the baths a long time, but once we had filled our cameras with photos, we decided to go back to the hostel and recharge, then go out to Bath Abbey to do the tower tour. If you've done a church tower tour before, this one is not much different. In fact, compared to St. Paul's Cathedral in London, this one is sort of...meh. Anyway, we got to go behind the clock in the tower and listen to the bells.

Some views from the top. No points if you can spot the Thermae Spa.

Tonight is dinner at Subway, cheap and, actually, REALLY GOOD! Afterwards we hang out and watch "Indie Game: The Movie" on Jason's laptop, then head to Trivia Night. Basically, we smash everyone here, except for one group -- named Quiz on My Face -- who beat us by 1 point. However, in vindication, the winning team chooses the wrong prize and get to share a blow-up cow. We end up winning the "pie" prize (where you have to give the funniest answer to #10 in each round) and we win a round of beers. Also, we each get t-shirts (I forget why we got these, but it might have been because we got a perfect round).

From the left: Anne (US), Jordan (CA), and Jason (UK).