Rub A Dub

At the Aqua Sulis Roman Bath.

We took a bath… uh, I mean we went to Bath this weekend. I had already taken my bath for August . We took a bus on Saturday morning and arrived in Bath in time for lunch. We grabbed some pasties in the main square and sat at outside and watched a street performer wearing a pink tutu, juggle swords while riding an 8 foot unicycle. Quite entertaining.

After lunch, we scooted across the street to the main attraction, the Roman baths themselves. Originally, the natural hot spring had been used by the native British peoples as a place of worship for the god Sulis but the site was later co-oped by the Romans to serve as a bath and place of worship for the goddess Minerva.  A bunch of cool stuff there, although we have seen much more in the way of ruins and Roman buildings while living in Rome. On my campus, we even had a 2000 year old Roman cistern. The Bronze head of Minerva was neat though, as was the pediment showing some mouth of truth-esque bearded god. We didn’t  get to take a dip in the natural hot spring water (which was gree, odd smelling, chockfull of algae and generally kinda gross) but we did get to drink some at the end of our visit. Nothing tastier than slightly warm  and sulfury bath water.

Bath Abbey

Upon leaving the baths complex we went next door to the abbey which is built over even more Roman ruins. It was apparently the last Gothic style church built in England. While rather plain on the inside, except for the neat vaulted ceiling, we did get to hear some of what I could only call abstract organ playing. I don’t know whether the sound was intended to be that way, or if they were just testing out the pipes. Trippy stuff.

We went to the Royal Crescent and Circus after that. The Circus is basically a grouping of houses built in a circle around a traffic circle with some giant trees in the middle. The Royal Crescent is 30 houses built in a (surprise surprise) crescent, sitting above a park. Courtney practiced being a crescent here. She may have a future in it (see picture below).

Most of what followed you could probably call wandering. We traipsed back and forth across the rather small but pretty town. We stopped in some shops. We grabbed a bite to eat at a local pub. Note: In England, scampi just means shrimp as opposed to the shrimp in butter that you would get from ordering scampi in the states. We wandered more, got some fudge from a sweet shop and then made our way home.

Bath was a possible work option for Courtney, but at the time we were still holding out for Scotland. In the end, while Bath is pretty, Oxford is probably the better choice. Just as pretty, with a bit more to do and see, and less hills, which when you either bike or walk, is important.