We were up, showered and
breakfasted by 8.30 today. We jumped aboard our Vehicle and headed back into
the main city of Bath. The first tour for today was the World Heritage Site –
the Roman Baths. We got our audio guides and set off to see this famous site.
It is the best preserved ancient baths and temple complex in northern Europe.
It is here at the heart of the site that the only thermal springs in the UK
emerge from deep underground bringing health and vitality to this beautiful
city. In the first century AD, the Romans chose this site to build the most
dramatic suite of public building of Roman Britain. We could see ‘in situ’
remains and ornate architectural fragments of the magnificent Temple of Sulis
Minerva, the goddess of the thermal spring, and the remarkably well-preserved
bath house frequented by residents and pilgrims nearly 2000 years ago. We also
saw coins and curses that had been thrown into the Sacred Spring as petitions
to the Goddess, inscriptions recording local people and well-traveled
pilgrims, and numerous other treasures unearthed through archaeological
excavations over the past 300 years.
This tour completed, we then
found a coffee shop for our customary morning tea – carrot cake and Latte this
morning to recharge the batteries before heading off to explore further.
We wandered past the Abbey which
began in 1499 and is the last of the great medieval churches of England. Over
the past 12 ½ centuries three different churches have occupied the site of
today’s Abbey: An Anglo-Saxon Abbey Church dating from 757, pulled down by the
Norman conquerors of England soon after 1066. A massive Norman Cathedral began
in 1090. It was larger than the monastery could afford to maintain and by the
end of the 15th Century was in ruins. The present Abbey founded in
1499, ruined after the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539 by order of Henry
VIII. This beautiful Abbey became our landmark during the course of the day in
order to know where we were. Today as we past it there happened to be a 'performance' by a group of ladies which was obviously a prelude to some ceremony that appeared to involve the Mayor of Bath. We happened along during the middle of it and didn't hang around to find out what it was all about!!
We kept wandering an came across
the Jane Austen Centre which is a permanent exhibition telling the story of
Jane’s Bath experience, the effect that living here had on her and her writing.
She is probably the best known and best loved of Bath’s many famous residents
and visitors and she lived here from 1801-1806.
We continued from here along to
‘The Circus’ which is a perfect circle of 33 houses in 3 blocks entered by 3
streets. It was designed in 1754 by a father and son team and it is an inverted
replica of the Roman Colosseum. The houses are designed with great attention to
detail including elegant iron railings, twin columns on each store and a
decorative frieze, all crowned with delicately carved stone acorns on the
parapet.
Our next stop – the Fashion
Museum at the Assembly Rooms. This is a world-class collection of contemporary
and historical dress. The displays include 150 dressed figures to illustrate
the changing styles in fashionable clothes from the late 16th
Century to the present day, chosen from the Museum’s collection of 30,000
original items. The galleries have been completely re-displayed in a series of
themes including menswear and ladies wear, dress for day and dress for evening
as well as alternative fashion and fashion for today. There was also a display
of re-production clothes that you could try on and see how they felt to wear –
corsets and crinolines – we chose not to, though there were a number of
children having an absolute ball doing it!
Wandering back through the
streets of Bath we ended up back at Sally Lunn’s where we dropped in to see the
Museum as we had missed it yesterday. It was downstairs in a tiny space which
is where the original kitchen had been. The actual recipe for the bun was
re-discovered in the 1930’s in a secret cupboard over the downstairs corner
fireplace and is passed on now with the deeds of the house. The buns are still
made in the second floor in a modern bakery, on the second floor in what was
previously a bedroom.
Back along the streets of Bath we
headed to simply join the throngs of people as we window shopped and took in
the sights of Bath, stopping for a quick bite of lunch.
We then headed into Marks and
Spence for further clothes shopping for both of us and then back to our camping ground to some
much needed laundry and blogging. For dinner tonight, we chose to
go and try the restaurant where we are staying. There were lots of campers
there for dinner, as well as taking advantage of the free WI-fi they had there
(we should have done the same as the reception in the motor home in the park is
pretty lousy). Our meal was huge – in fact all the meals we saw were,
exceedingly hot and delicious.
It was a nice way to finish our day here in
Bath.
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