Today we spend the entire day in Bath.  This Georgian city has not changed since much of it was built 300 years ago.  There have been many Georgian period movies and TV shows filmed here because the architecture is authentic as it gets.

We started the day with a visit to the Roman Baths.  Bath is the only known place in the UK with natural hot springs.  When the Romans invaded England they built a spa around these hot springs and it quickly became a place where all Roman citizens could come to relax, pray to their gods and take in the healing powers of the natural hot springs.

The Romans had used all of the engineering knowledge to build a huge facility around these hot springs, there were not only baths, but gyms, and large pools to swim in the warm waters, they built roofs to shelter the springs, and those enjoying them, there were changing rooms, massage rooms and separate areas for men and women.  Apparently Hadrian did not like having men and women bath together so he set into law that they could not and the Roman baths had to provide pools for both men and women further enlarging this facility.

The tour was self guided with the help of an excellent audio guide to explain how this large facility was built.  We were able to walk through many rooms including the area with the large pool, some of the smaller rooms like the changing room, gymnasium, and massage areas as well as look at other rooms that would have been like saunas.  

At the end of the tour we got to taste the water of the hot springs.  We probably spent two hours exploring this impressive site.

After the tour we went to the pump house, this is a Georgian style tea house where back in the day anyone who was anyone went there to be seen.  It was one of the social centers of society back during the Georgian period (1714 - 1830 name after the period of rule of George I, George II, George III and George IV).  I had a coffee with carrot cake, Krista had a tea with scones.

With a little food in us we then went on to explore more of Bath.  We walked along the river Avon (which means river in latin) so river river, We walked across the Pulteney bridge, which is only one of four bridges in the world that have shops on both sides, you actually can not see the water from the road of the bridge.  Krista and I have now been to three of the four, this one in Bath, the one in Florence Italy, and one in Venice Italy, the last one is in Germany (I guess we will be making a trip there just to complete the set.)

We then walked up through the town to the circus.  This is a part of the city where homes were built in a complete circle, of course they were in the Georgian style.  These were three building built as town homes each building was a semi circle with all three forming a perfect circle, with opening for streets to access the central roundabout.  Years ago before indoor plumbing there was a well in the center of the circle where the inhabitants would get their water.  If you stand there and clap your hands loudly just once you will hear your clap echoed back to you three times.  I think this is because of the three semi circle buildings.  I tried this and yes you do get your echo back three times - confirmed.

We then walked to the Royal Crescent, this was again homes build in the Georgian style (This one by George II, the circus was built by George I).  But this one was much larger than the others and facing a very nice park.  Today, just as in the circus peple live in these homes.  There is one section of the Royal Crescent that has been turned into a hotel, and one of the end units into a museum (₤15.50 to get in - we did not go in.).

The Royal Crescent is near our B&B so we stopped for a quick break before heading to a pub for a quick bite.  After some food we went and did a bit of shopping at Marks and Spencers.  They do not have any face cloths in the hotels here and we just went in to look around and pickup a couple of them.

For the rest of the day we explored some more of the city, went into the Jane Austin center just to look, apparently she spent a lot of time here and many of her books reference parts of Bath.

Tonight we are going to the best sea food place in Bath, The Scallop Shell to try out their fish and chips - they are apparently very good - we will see....

The fish and chips were very good, met the NS stanard, and we met another Canadian.  Our server is from Edmonton.