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Bath, 3/30/07

Day 3- London to Bath
Frustrating day. Up early, but not as early as we'd hoped. 7am wake-up, shower, breakfast at the B&B, and 8:30 car to train station. The private car proved a very good idea,as we rode in comfort the entire way, didn't have to bother with lugging the heavy bags all over the underground, and even with the car taking us directly there, we barely made our train.We sat in the "quiet car" on the train to Bath, and it was indeed quiet - no cell phones, no loud-talking people, just the sound of the train, and the view of the lovely scenery rolling by. Mom and I brushed up on our travel books (Rick Steve's, and Eyewitness Travel Guides, in case you're curious) along the way.

When we got to the train station at Bath, with the help of some very kind station attendants, we realized that there was a car rental place right there, but sadly not OUR car rental place. When faced with lugging all of our baggage the number of blocks to get to the place where we'd reserved our car, we quickly reconsidered, cancelled our reservation, and rented a car from the office at the station. The lovely gentleman at the rental office convinced us to 'upgrade' to an automatic, and that proved to be a wise choice. A VERY wise choice. Thus began the segment wherein I became a brilliant navigator, and Mom became a champion at driving on the 'wrong' side of the road.

We managed (just barely) to find parking in near the Bath city center, and headed out to see what we could of the town before checking in to the B&B. I'd found a pretty sweet map of Bath, but we found that as long as we were in the main part of town, we didn't need it as all of the attractions wewanted to see were well signposted. We went into the Abbey, and walked around enjoying the stained glass and sculptures. Built in the early 1500's, it's very elegant, with tall detailed pointed arches and elaborate windows that illustrate biblical stories.From the Abbey, it was a very short walk (past the world's hottest Gladiator) to the Roman Baths that the town is famous for.

Back when the Romans ruled everything, they built baths everywhere as places of worship, or just to relax and mingle with other townies. This one was in use from about the 1st century AD until about the 4th. Around that time, the pagan religions fell out of favor and the bath and temple complex fell into ruin until the Spring was rediscovered as a place of healing in the 12th century, and used more or less continuously until the mid-20th century. Bath was all the rage in the early 1800's, when Jane Austen was doing most of her writing, and two of her books were set there.

After the Roman Baths, we went to the Assembly Rooms and the Museum of Costume. For those of you who know me, it is no surprise to say that this was heaven for me. They have very lovely displays of actual garments from the 1800's forward (the pre-1800 exhibit was closed for renovation).They even had a seperate exhibit of costumes and hats from the collection of Rudolph Nureyev. Yummy! (and the costumes were lovely as well) Notable items were gloves made of leather so thin and fine that they could be rolled up to fit inside a Walnut Shell (!) and detailed descriptions of garments being specially ordered and made for fashionable ladies of the 1800's (including receipts and descriptions/advice written by those ladies to their friends).

Following that, we decided it was time to make our way to our place of lodging for the evening. It was a nice B&B with a very pretty view of the back garden. Mom and I stayed in for the night eating boxed food we'd gotten from the grocery store in town and watching the BBC. sweeet. :)

More photos up at Flickr...