Bath - it's old school!

It aint warm over on this side of the channel.

It's kind of weird to have gone from, two or so weeks ago, temperatures in their high twenties, to now overnight lows of below zero.  It's not necessarily a bad thing - there's something beautiful about a crisp autumn day;  Big piles of leaves to kick, clear watery light coming in through the empty branches of the trees, and mulled wine.

Oh, and flooding.

We headed up to Bath to catch up with a friend and to have a look at the city.  Even coming in by train, the water was everywhere, like riding a train over a huge lake, rather than a river.

The Abbey sits over the Christmas Market

Nonetheless, Bath is a truly beautiful city.  We arrived in the middle of their Christmas Market, so we drank mulled wine and ate British pies (What, I hear you ask are British pies?  Simple, they're pies made in Britain.  Duh.) and did some shopping.

As you can see from the picture, it was an absolutely beautiful crisp autumn day.

Our lovely host made us a roast pork dinner that evening, which was lovely!


Day two we made a late start to the day and headed to the Roman Baths.  Bath is a city that was built around service to these baths, so is a very old place.  Unlike other Ancient Roman cities we've visited however, the whole city was essentially built over the top of the older city, so it's a mix of ancient and other times.

How the Romans did it!

Still, the Baths are amazing.  Naturally hot, steaming water in these Roman Ruins, plus the story of where all the water comes and goes.  The ruins are quite well preserved and well researched, so you get a real idea of what the place used to be like.

After that, we had a walk through the Victorian Part of the city - Victoria Park and the Royal Crescent.  Quite beautiful.

The last day we decided to head out of the city and, rather than be overly touristy and go see Stonehenge, we went and saw a henge that was made of stones.  BAM!

Avebury is quite interesting - you get there by driving through this old English country side - thatched houses, cute brickwork stores, bricked in paddocks.  Then you arrive at the stones themselves - huge circles of stone in large circles.  Very interesting, and not as touristy and Stonehenge (apparently).  Well worth the morning out of the city.

Nick and Corry get Stoned!  Hah!

So yes, if you need a break from the Big City, I'd highly recommend a weekend away to Bath.  Take a car, because touring around the countryside is also very interesting and cute as well.