The Beautiful City of Bath

Back in September we took a trip to Stonehenge and the city of Bath. Bath has to be the most beautiful city I've ever seen! (Not that I've seen a lot cities, but WOW!) It's very picturesque and romantic; and for some reason strangely quite. We saw the most famous tourist attractions, but there is SO much more. It would be easy to spend days there.

One of the most interesting things I learned there was that Jane Austin lived there, and drew inspiration for her writings from the beautiful area. There is a Jane Austin museum there I would like to eventually visit.

In this first picture is the famous Pulteney Bridge- though I'm not sure what it's famous for. Just on the other side of the bridge we found Aaron's new favorite shop, an antique map store. He purchased a map of the city we live in that is over 400 years old! For a little perspective, that's older than the Declaration of Independence!

We didn't get close enough to this monument to see what it really was, but I thought it looked like an exact, smaller Washington Monument!

The beautiful streets of Bath :)

This was beautiful to see in person.

For a funny (and a little disturbing) note: For those who have seen the movie Wall-E, remember seeing the pictures of all the captains, with Auto in the background? That's what the security camera behind the statue reminds me of...Big brother is watching!

The gorgeous Bath Abbey Church! This is still an active church today, and was originally founded in 1499! I would LOVE to attend one of their Sunday morning services. They are well known for performances from their choir and visiting choirs.

So, it took us a while to figure it out- but these were real people! They were really good, and we wouldn't have known if it weren't for them VERY slowly raising their cups to their mouth as if to take a drink. I can't imagine how uncomfortable it must be to be completely covered in gold paint!

This is the Roman Baths (hence the name of the town!). The hot springs were thought to have healing powers, which is why the Romans turned it into a bathing place (don't know about you, but public bathing doesn't sound good to me!). There is still a spa today! The original pump room has been turned into an elegant tea room, where you can also sample the hot springs water. It's warm and has a strong mineral taste, but if I live to be 200 we'll know why (I really don't want to live to be 200 for the record).

Second floor view of the baths.

Hunter touching the "healing waters." :)

So this was a first for us....it's not secret that the English like their cafes. Almost every store of reasonable size has it's own cafe. But a CHURCH with a cafe??

So that's the highlights of Bath! We definitely hope to visit it again while we're here in England. There's just so much to see and we didn't even put a dent in it. And it's just plain pretty!

~Candace