We spent the day touring Bath. It was delightful! The city was a significant Roman site, then was largely unimportant for centuries, until the 17th century when the healing powers of its hot spring were "rediscovered."
During the 1700s, the city grew. Planners, architects and masons remade Bath in the fashionable Georgian style, with that genre's logical, symmetrical, perfectionist features. Walking through Bath, viewing street after street of monostylistic façades, is either incredibly boring, or incredibly soothing and pleasing to the eye. I think the latter :) So did the Georgian aristocrats.
At any rate, we got a good walking tour as we walked among several museums and heritage sites (see my later posts). We started at The Royal Crescent and The Circus, designed by architects John Wood the Younger and John Wood the Elder, respectively. We stood in the center of The Circus and witnessed how a clap or yelp echos three times around the circular boulevard.
We checked out three museums and the Roman Bath. A and I ducked into a used book store and found two Bill Bryson books that I had been looking for!
We ate dinner at The Stable, a trendy pizza restaurant on Kingsmead Square. It had good pizza and a great atmosphere.
We viewed the outside of Bath Abbey, alongside the River Avon in the setting sun. It was a fun day, and we headed to our hotel thinking that we could have spent more time in Bath!
The Royal Crescent, built 1767-1774
The Circus, built 1754-1768
Standing on the former well cap in the center of The Circus
The Paragon
Outside the Roman Bath, photo by C
Bath Abbey façade
Bath Abbey
Pulteney Bridge
The River Avon
Looking over the River Avon
HerschOWL, one of the Minerva's Owl Project sculptures,
featuring William Herschel's telescope
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