Bathing for a day

Bath Abbey had an impressive front depicting the angels climbing to heaven and demons falling to hell.
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Today I woke up early to make sure that I would make the bus trip, sponsored by Butler, to Bath city.  It was a long 3 hr bus ride out to Bath city, all the way across the island.  I fell asleep in and out along the trip but the scenery I did see was beautiful.  We traveled through acres of rural farms.

We approached Bath from atop a hillside; looking down upon the city was amazing.  It was much larger than I expected it to be.  All of the Butler students went to the Roman Bath House first.  Butler paid for us so that was nice; entrance included an audio guide, just like at Stonehenge.

Bath house front
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The beginning of the tour starts with some history of the bath house starting from the very beginning with the Romans initially overtook England as a province.  The tour went over the significance of the bath house as a social hub ideally made for healing and relaxing but also for social gatherings.

As usual the audio guides were pretty corny.  I was content to stick with reading the captions next to the displays.  They also had reconstituted some of the facades, statues, and other artifacts.  By reconstituted I mean that usually only fragments were left of a wall, sculpture, etc. and they put it back together in a formation that the excavators believed it originally was.

There were a bunch of these lying around the town so it was nice to navigate through
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I got to dip my hand into the stream where the hot water from the spring flowed into the main bathroom.  The water was surprisingly very warm.  It was easy to see the plumbing system that the Romans had come up with, it was amazing to see that it was still working after all these years!  They even had a lead pipe!  The pipe looked in good condition and I was surprised to see it.

I think the coolest part was seeing how they created sauna rooms.  They would raise the floor on pillar tiles and fill the underneath area with hot air, which would heat the floor hot enough to burn your soles.  The hot air would then by syphened through the walls so that the walls would heat up as well.  Check out the pictures of the existing tile pillars where the floors used to rest upon.

I had many people take pictures of me but only this one really turned out decent. This was the main bath room that you've probably seen a ton of pictures of. The sculptures up top are not originally with the house. They were installed later to depict...roman ceasars I think? I can't remember who
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After the bath house I headed to the pump room, which was a very nice dining room, very decorated and up-scale.  They were serving water that was pumped up from the spring.  I had a glass but couldn't finish it because it tasted like blood and smelled horrible.  The water has high amounts of iron and sulphur in it.  It's supposed to be REALLY good for you but I could only drink so much before I had to put it down.

I exited the Roman Bath House and headed to the Holborne Museum.  I didn't mean to go there but I was lost and just kept walking.  It was a small art gallery and it didn't look nearly as impressive as the National Art Gallery in Dublin or London so I didn't pay to go in.  Instead I headed out to the Museum of Costume.  When I got there, they had closed their first room, which had the oldest costumes.  I didn't want to see 19th century clothing so I kept walking on.  I did see the assembly rooms, which are directly above the costume museum.  They were really nice and are apparently still in use.  There was a wedding going on!

An auxiliary bathouse. Most of these areas were all dark because there was a large roof over each. Light came through windows.
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I left and went to the Royal Crescent.  It was a beautiful day and the Crescent looked great.  I took a couple of pictures and hung out on the lawn to enjoy the view overlooking a bit of Bath.  I checked out Penteley Bridge and hung out there for a while.  I passed by the Jane Austen museum.  Having not ready any of her books, I didn't go in because I figured I wouldn't have appreciated it.  There was a chap standing outside all dressed up old-style so I took a picture with him.

You can see how the floors were raised, creating air pockets for the hot air. The walls were similarly hollow.
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Basically, Bath was a really relaxing day.  Great to get out of London to see it.  I'm glad it was just a one-day thing because it was just enough time to see what I wanted to.

We all gathered up in the bus at 415 PM and headed out.  We didn't get back to London until 730 PM.  I had planned to go out to dinner with my friend Savvas, he's Greek and knew of a great Greek restaurant that we were planning on going to.  My reservation was for 700 PM so I had to cancel on him.  It may have been for the better though because it was going to be 25 GBP/person!

nobody follows this sign. This is where the water entered the pool area from the spring
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Tonight I hung out in the Great Dover Street Apartments courtyard to watch the lunar eclipse.  It was nice to see, but it was cold and it took a long time to happen so we finally turned in when the moon was 80% red.