A Day in Bath

January 11, 2006

Dear Journal,

Today we visited the town of Bath, and it was amazing, and for the first time in the trip it wasn’t raining. The day started off with us leaving Salisbury, however, it was not as long a trip as I was expecting. Paul actually got us to Bath early on in the day, allowing us a few hours to roam around before we had any plans. We first started off by going out for an early lunch. Cara, Britta, Amy, Maggie, and I got out lunch at a pasty shop. It was so good!

Photo courtesy of Essence of Cornwall.
After lunch we wandered around shopping and getting a feeling for the area. We arrived back at the hotel just a few minutes before our walking tour of Bath was about to start. The tour was really interesting, and I because of the tour I fell in love with the city. Bath is built on the top of an old Roman city, called Aqua Sulis. However, the Roman settlement was not the first town to be built on that location. The reason why the Romans built there was because of the hot springs, in which the natives believed to be blessed, and would grant healing to those who were sick. So by having a settlement there, it allowed the Romans to rule from one of the natives religious spots. However, to keep the natives happy, the Romans built a temple to Minerva, and a roman bath over the hot springs.
Photo courtesy of Ian Britton
The tour guide also showed us around the rest of the city which was really interesting, esspecially one of the main bridges in the city, called Pulteny Bridge. The reason it was so interesting was that it had shops built into the bridge. After seeing the bridge and the rugby field our tour guide brought us to the Bath Abbey, which was amazing to look at. On the outside of the Abbey there were a set of ladders with small angels climbing up and down the ladders. Thinking about how long it must have taken to carve those angels and get them placed onto the Abbey is just awe enspiring.
Picture courtesy of Bath Abbey

Also on the walking tour of the city we saw many more interesting things, such as places where Jane Austin wrote, the old theatre, and gravel gardens set up like hedge mazes. The cool thing was that I never new that Jane Austin had lived with her brother in Bath when she wrote her books. Also I found out that in World War II the building that Jane Austin's brother had lived in had been bombed, however, his apartment was the only one still intact. The walking tour ended at the Costume Museum. This was really intriguing in that it had clothing from as far back as the Elizabethian age. At the museum they had girtles that people could try on, and most of the girls in the class tried them on, however, they were also able to convince some of the guys to try them on as well. After leaving the Costume Museum we all went our own seperate ways but a few of us went to Sally Lunns and had a late afternoon snack. It was really good.

After eating our snacks the class met at the baths so that we could wander around the ruins. It was really cool, because we were able to see the pillas that the Romans used to heat the Caldarium (hot bath), as well as being able to see the actual drain that the Romans used. When we finished exploring the bath, we went back to the hotel and had a nice dinner.

 Roman Drain, Photo courtesy of Galen R Frysinger