Day 29 - Bath

A rainy start to the day .... Britain is meant to be in a drought but I don't think we have the same definition (97mm of rain since the beginning of April). We navigated our way to the centre of Bath and parked the car. Walked to the Roman Baths and toured around its museum and pools. Over 2,000 years old, they are amazing with more than a million litres of water, naturally heated to about 46C flowing through them. You can still see the overflow channel designed to take surplus water back to the River Avon. The Romans and Georgians both believed the water had medicinal powers and drank it ..... we did drink some but thought it tasted horrible. We also found it interesting to read the curses that Romans had thrown into the pools asking the Goddess Sulis Minerva to take retribution on their behalf for things that may have been stolen from them.
We then visited Bath Abbey which has a fan-vaulted ceiling and is so light due to beautiful glass windows on all sides. We started a heritage walk around Bath walking across Pulteney Bridge. The bridge is lined with shops and leads to Great Pulteney Street and beautiful gardens which Jane Austen promenaded through. Named after a wealthy landholder who owned 600 acres and wanted to develop it into a neo-classical garden suburb but was hindered by the American War of Independence and the war with France.
Walked back across the bridge and through narrow, cobbled streets to the Jane Austen Centre. We did tour the Centre, learning about Jane's life in Bath and enjoyed an afternoon tea in their Regency Tearooms. But by this time our carpark ticket was about to expire so returned to the car.
We drove around and stopped to see The Circus, a perfect circle of three-tier houses and the Royal Crescent, 30 terraced houses connected with giant Ionic columns, very grand houses.
Then we continued driving to visit the other landmarks which John, our B&B host suggested.
We drove to Farleigh Hungerford Castle which was a Norman Castle and an important defense against invasion from the North. All that is standing now are two towers and a few walls. It was getting late so we decided not to tour the site instead driving to The George Inn.
The George Inn is in Norton St Philip, Somerset and has been an inn for over 600 years being one of the oldest in the country. It was established by the Carthusian monks who encouraged a major cloth industry to be established in the village. Throughout the centuries, as well as being an inn, it stored wool for the trade fairs and was a court-house in 1685 where 12 men were hung following the loss of a rebel Protestant army led by the Duke of Monmouth against King James II. Monmouth used the George as his headquarters in his retreat (he was later beheaded at Tower Hill). We were interested to hear that a 'paranormal' investigation had been done in the George Inn and had found evidence of activity - however we didn't find any ghosts but thought a portrait of a lady was spooky ..... a great pub where we enjoyed a meal in the front bar.