Bath, England 20.09

We arrived fairly late at the train station in Bath, where we were picked up by Andy, our friend from Thailand. We forgot how friendly and enthusiastic he was, so it was a blast to meet him again. His cheerful attitude was very contagious, and we were excited to be in a new town in England.
We were taken on a little tour of the city by Andy and his housemate Fred. It was nice to get a feel for the orientation of the city, and what was worth visiting. They showed drove us a place called 'The Circus', and a place called 'The Crescent'. They were some pretty impressive sandstone buildings, so we decided we'd come back during the day to see them.
We came to Andy's house on a great night, as his housemate Ben was having his birthday party. They introduced us to all the guests, and supplied us with a nice glass of whisky and freshly squeezed lime. We chatted with Andy about our latest travels, and we all shared our experiences from India and other trying countries. We met Andy before we went to India, and he warned us that it would be tough. He said he hated it for the first couple of weeks, but after a few months, he started to get the feel for the place. This seems to be the case with a lot of people we've talked to.

One funny story that he told us in Thailand, was about a train that he and his friend took in India. They got on the train, but in the wrong carriage, and went they woke up in the morning, they realised the train had split in two, and each half had travelled to two different destinations! They were unfortunately about 400km south of their intended destination, in a little town that had probably never seen white people more than a couple of times. On their bus ride out of the place, they were stared at by everyone on the bus for the entire journey. They never seemed to get tired of watching them.
The star attraction of this party, was the "Rock Band" game that Ben had bought for his birthday. If you haven't played this before, it's kind of like those arcade dancing games that people play, where you have to step on the right arrow on the dancing mat, as the arrows hit the top of the screen. In this case, you have a guitar, a drum set and a microphone, and you have to hit the right drum or button on the guitar as the arrows reach the top of the screen.

Everyone went wild at every song. There were some pretty cool songs, including Radiohead, Muse, Oasis and Nirvana. Everyone had so much fun singing along, and discovering their talent, or lack of it, in playing musical instruments. It was hilarious, and by the end of the night, people were fighting for their favourite instrument.

Artur's favourite was the drums. He might not have had the best timing, but his joy was palpable. Loren found that she was not too bad at drumming, and it became her favourite too. When you figure out how to follow the arrows, you start to sound like you're actually playing the song, it definitely makes you feel like a Rockstar!

Ben, the birthday boy, is in a band, and his friends from the band came to the party as well. One of the guys brought him an amazing gift that had taken him ages to make. It was a cake in the shape of a concert stage. It even had little band members with pictures of the real band members stuck onto their faces. He used thin red licorice strips as electrical wires, and many other amazing details. We were almost too scared to eat it, but eventually it began to be devoured.
It was such a great night, and we really enjoyed meeting everybody there. No doubt we'll probably end up with the Rockband game ourselves some day, and spend hours playing at home :)

The next day we got up lateish, and chatted with Fred, Andy and his girlfriend Laura. We wanted to visit Stonehenge as we had already planned, so we were figuring out how to get there. Fred, Andy and Laura decided that since they'd never seen Stonehenge either, they might make it a day trip and come with us.
We all left for Stonehenge in one car, but decided to first stop at a viewing point over Bath. The place we went was apparently a local secret, and the view was spectacular. Andy didn't know about it until recently, even though he'd lived there for years.

It was a huge park, with rolling green hills, and beautiful old trees. At the edge of the park, you could see the hill drop off steeply down towards the town below. You could see the Crescent and the Circle, that we had visited in the car the night before. It was a spectacular view, because most of the buildings in bath are made from sandstone in a similar colour. It's uniformity was charming and quaint from above.
All around the town, you could see the forest and more stretches of untouched green pastures. It looked like a secret paradise. The leaves of the trees in the forests around us were just starting to become coloured with Autumn shades. It was truly beautiful.

After we saw the secret park, we drove through some back streets nearby. We made a quick stop here, to see a quirky local memorial to a cat. The low standing street sign for the street was covered in letters, treats, toys and poems, to a stray cat that the whole neighbourhood had adopted. Everyone had their own name for the cat, and no doubt their own food bowl, and they felt a great loss when it died.
Soon we were on the way to Stonehenge again. It was a fairly long drive, but the scenery was very pretty. The hedges or bushes on the sides of the roads were so big and green that it felt like they would reach out and brush the car as we went past. It was also fun chatting with our new friends on the way.
Soon we arrived at the epic site. It was really located in the middle of nowhere. In every direction, there were just fields of grass and the occasional group of trees. However the incredible stone pillars stood out impressively. We were given audio guides at the ticket booth, which seemed really out of place. The ticket booth had been built in a field, along with paid parking. It seemed a bit silly to have to pay to see something that is in a field. They're definitely working that tourist dollar.
We walked over to see Stonehenge for ourselves, listening to all the history about it as we went. A rope was tied around the outside, stopping you from getting within 10 metres of it. This was a bit disappointing, we would have liked to have a closer look, or even to stand in the middle and imagine what it used to be used for. I suppose that way, their grass would get ruined, and you'd never get a photo without 15 tourist in it.

We heard all the theories as to why Stonehenge was built and what it was used for. Some said that it was a display of power, and nothing else. Some say that it was used as a road marker. Others say that it has religious and perhaps mythical meaning.

The theories of it being a place of human or animal sacrifice were discounted. The stone which was thought to be like an altar, and stained with blood, was coloured naturally. There are many burial mounds near Stonehenge though, one only about 30m away. These mounds were used for burying lots of people, and the dirt was piled up and up as the years went by.
Artur and the others enjoyed seeing Stonehenge, but got bored very quickly. They weren't so impressed by it apart from the fact that the huge stones had been transported there in one piece from Wales, 5000 years ago. They all sat down on the grass and chatted, soaking in the beautiful and unusual autumn sun.

Loren was fascinated by the place, and couldn't get enough of it. She was wandering around admiring it and listening to all the stories about it avidly. Eventually she joined the others on the grass. A strange lady walked past, making the legends of druids and witches seem very real. She was wearing a sleeveless jacket made of sheepskin, had long wild hair, and was carrying a long gnarled stick, with a carved head. Creeeepy!
When we got back to the car, we decided to set up a little picnic for ourselves on the grassy fields nearby. We only had snacks but we were eager to stay in the sunshine while it lasted. Someone locked the fence on us though, and we had to climb over to get out again.

After seeing Stonehenge, we drove to nearby Salisbury for lunch. We parked near a really pretty river, which was filled with swans. The sides of the banks were filled with beautiful weeping willow trees.
The town of Salisbury was very quaint. It was still filled with old houses and cobblestone streets. We walked into one of the main squares, and discovered that they were having a food and wine festival. There were tents everywhere, with people selling local produce. Loren was excited because she loves buying unique local food. We arrived just as they were closing though, so we had about 2 minutes to find something and buy it. Loren decided on some fresh turkish delight.
We kept wandering through Salisbury, where we found several great looking pubs to eat at. Most people felt like fish and chips though, so we ended up going to a takeaway place. We bought our food from a strange looking guy/girl (difficult to tell which one), and went to eat at the huge grassy square near the church.
We settled down on our picnic rug, and spread out our food. It was the perfect place to be, out in the sunshine and on the perfect green lawn. The grass area was a park surrounding a monumental church. We decided to go in and have a look after our lunch.
The church was pretty impressive. It was 750 years old, and is one of Britains's finest gothic cathedrals. It has arched vaulted ceilings, and the intricate stonework inside is impressive. The stained glass windows were pretty cool as well.

We spent quite a while exploring its huge space. A lot of ancient tombs were lining the inside of the church as well, right next to the pews. Some of them had sculptures of the person on top, and a couple of them were wearing knight's clothing. Pretty cool.

The next day, we had a lazy morning in front of the TV and the laptop. It was nice to be snuggled in someone's living room, and able to work on the internet for a little while. Around 2pm, we finally managed to leave the house and start sightseeing for the day.
We started our tour in the Bath Abbey and and the Tower in the Abbey. It was a pretty nice church, but the thing that we enjoyed the most was the tour of the tower. It was probably the best one we've been on. We climbed up 112 steps, and walked all over the roof.
First our guide took us into the bell room, where he showed us how they ring the bells. The first way that they do it is by just pulling the thick, heavy rope that is connected to the bells. The second way is to pull a little rope that is attached to a hammer, which rings the bells by tapping it. The third way was to use an electronic system, which is kind of like a juke box. It's connected to all the bells and has tunes programmed into it. So you can put in the number of a tune you want, and hear the bells play. The guy actually did that for us, so the whole town had to listen to a tune on the bells for our benefit! The last way is via the clock. The clock rings the bells on the hour, and plays a little tinkle every 15 mins. It must be noisy living near the church.
There were plaques all over the room, commemorating the successful ringing of the bells at special occasions. It requires a lot of people and good coordination to play these tunes, so they honour them for their efforts. The bells are rung for occassions like the coronation of a new queen, a royal visit to Bath, a marriage in the royal family etc. Once they had a bad ringing of the bells, so there is no plaque for that occasion, they are trying hard to forget.

Next our guide took us through a little passage in the ceiling to just behind the dial of the clock. We could see the city through the dial, and the hands of the clock. That was pretty cool! Then he took us to where we could walk on the top of the vaulted ceiling.
Vaulted ceilings are not cemented together, they rely on the perfect jigsaw puzzle fit and the weight of the stones to hold them in place. There was a small hole in the stones, so we could see through, and we were shocked to see how thin it was. Pretty freaky, but it's reassuring to know its survived for 750 years so far.
Finally we climbed to where we had a great 360 degree panorama of Bath. We saw the Roman Baths from above, and the rest of pretty city. It was a great view, and it was nice to be able to see the sandstone buildings from close up. However, the best view was still from that hill above the city.
Next we went to see the Roman Baths. It is a suprisingly huge complex, that doesn't look that big from the outside. We thought we'd be walking inside to take a quick look at the bath itself, and then be out and on our way again. When we came inside, we started we realised that it was like a big museum built around the baths. We started moving from room to room, seeing 3D animations and models of what the baths used to look like. There was actually a whole complex of temples and steam rooms built around the baths themselves. It was pretty impressive to see how well the Romans were able to engineer so long ago.
Archaeological digs were performed on the site, and huge pieces of rock and carved decorations for the temples were discovered. The Romans must have thought the waters were holy, because they threw all sorts of precious items into the water. These were probably offerings.

We saw a small bath on the ground level, which had lots of little steps leading into it. This one was considered to be the most holy. You could see the bubbling of the spring on the surface of the water.
Next we saw the big bath, which is the centerpiece for the bath complex. It was absolutely enormous. It was surrounded by a big walkway on all sides, and steps leading into the water. Unfortunately we were not allowed to try swim in these famous and supposedly healing waters.
Next, the tour took us to the tepidarium and the other steam rooms. There was another huge pool in this complex as well. The steam rooms were well worn by time, so it was difficult to see how the room used to be. There were diagrams, but it was still a little tricky. What we could see, was the piles of tiles which were used to transport the heat from the furnace below.
As we left the Roman Baths, we were offered a taste of the spring water from the spa. We decided to give it a go. Unfortunately it wasn't the best tasting water we'd ever come across, but it was worth a try. It smelt a bit sulfuric.

After seeing the baths, we decided to get a better look at the Circus, which Andy had shown us on our drive into town. We walked over to the huge roundabout, and were even more impressed than before. The center of the roundabout was filled with several enormous trees, which had grown together in one big cluster, so that they looked like one big tree.
The buildings around the outside of the roundabout, were the focal point of this place though. On all four sides of the roundabout, there were four curved, identical buildings. It looked like one huge round building, with little passageways to pass through on four sides. The buildings were really pretty, as they were all made of the sandstone that is so typical for Bath.
We heard that the architect for this building, only built the facade, and then sold pieces of the facade and the land behind to different people. This ensured that the building looked fabulous and uniform, but people could choose exactly what kind of living quarters they wanted. Clever!
We noticed some bizarre little coloured pigs here in the Circus, and all around town. Each of them was made from the same mould, but they were all decorated in different colours, and with very different decorations.
Apparently differerent shops are sponsoring a local artist to decorate a pig for them. The reason pigs were chosen as a theme for Bath, is because of a legend about how bath was founded. A man with a skin disease was sent from his hometown to live with the pigs. He came across a spring in bath, and when he washed in it, he was healed. He returned to his village and brought people to the spring. They decided to built a settlement there. So this was how Bath was begun.
After we saw the Circus, we went to see the other landmark building, the Crescent. This building was a large curved building, like the Crescent, but it is only half a circle. The sandstone building was very impressive and looked almost like a palace, standing at top of the huge hill. In front of the building, there was a huge stretch of lawn going all the way down the hill. This lawn is like a private frontyard for the residents of the Crescent. No trespassing is allowed.
Next we walked to the bottom of the hill, where there was a big public park. It was very pretty down there, and there were a few displays of gardenbeds full of flowers. We wandered through the gardens, and then back into town.
We decided to cook dinner for ourselves and Andy, so we picked up some groceries and headed back to the house. We cooked enough for the whole house, so everybody was happy.

After dinner, we had our last chat with Andy. He told us about his sister's job in forensics. She has to look after the cases of death on public transport. Suicides involving trains etc. can be pretty gory, but she likes her job.

The next morning, we had to return to London. We had left Loren's passport at the Brazilian embassy, and needed to pick it up today. It was a bit of a pain to have to back track, but we had no choice.

We remembered the code for the baggage room at the hostel we stayed at before. So we dropped our things in there inconspicuously. They might have let us leave them there, but since we weren't staying there that evening, we didn't know for sure, and didn't want to risk being turned down.

We dropped into the embassy and picked up the passport without any hassles. After that, we decided to just chill out in the living area of the hostel. We were both sick with colds, so we didn't have the energy to go sightseeing. Soon we left for the bus station, so we could make it to Cardiff, Wales, as planned. We boycotted the train system after the exhorbitant fee they charged for our journey.

To see the photos from the post in slideshow mode, click on on the link below:
Bath