Went to Bath and had a shower

My uncle and some of his family are having a vacation in England just now, and it turned out that we were getting fairly close to each other. So we drove up to Bath to have lunch with them!

Bath is a nice city to visit anyhow, but it's also fairly touristy. It's a city of about 85,000 people, and famous for the Roman Baths that were built around the third century.

Because Bath is a busy tourist place with a bit of a parking congestion problem, Tony parked at the park and ride outside the city and we took the bus (£3.00 each or $4.95) into the city. Because there was four of us it probably would have cost about the same to actually park in the city but this way we didn't have to deal with the traffic or hassle of finding a space. The bus dropped us right downtown, and that price included the ride back to the park and ride lot.

We arranged to meet my relatives in front of the Bath Abbey and went to a Wetherspoon pub for lunch. We are learning that Wetherspoon pubs do offer good value, but beware that they are most expensive when you find them in more touristy and larger cities!

From the left, my cousin's twin daughters Amy and Jill (or Jill and Amy...sorry girls!), my aunt Melissa, Tony, Helen, Ruth, my uncle Dave, my cousin Michelle.

Had a good meal and then wandered around seeing the sights of Bath with them. They had already visited the roman baths yesterday morning, and we had been in there some 25 years or so ago so we didn't need to see them. It was a drizzly, overcast day though! Temperature didn't get much above 18C (65F) so it felt more like April than July!

We walked up to "The Circus" and "Royal Crescent" to see the Georgian style homes built around 1770. 

Homes in The Circus.

Homes on Royal Crescent. 

There are 30 townhomes on Royal Crescent. Although the facade is almost exactly the same, the interiors are all completely different. The builder made the structure and then each unit was sold to other builders who were free to do what they wanted with the interiors. Each unit is 5,000 square feet. Actor Nicolas Cage recently sold his unit (complete with indoor swimming pool!) for £4.2 million ($6.7 million). 

Said goodbye to the relatives as they wanted to see some different things we weren't interested in. Glad we were able to get together though. They live in British Columbia, so we don't get to see them very often. Funny that we should meet up in England!

Tony and Helen on one of the narrow shopping streets.

We sat and had a nice hot coffee and tea at this little cafe on the left. Although it wasn't raining at the time, we are sat under the awning!

Bath Abbey. 

Unfortunately, the interior was closed until 5:00pm so we couldn't go in. There has been a church of some kind on this site since the year 757, and the current Abbey was completed in 1611!

The Parade Gardens. Beautifully done, but empty of people because they charge you to wander around.

Went for a walk along the River Avon.

Looking back towards the Pulteney Bridge.

So, a bit of a drizzly damp day, but we still enjoyed ourselves. This morning we woke up to rain, and it hasn't really let up yet!

So nobody has guessed where we're going to next! We booked the trip last night and we fly out on July 23rd. We'll let you guess for the rest of the day and if anybody can come up with it, we'll let you know that you're right. Otherwise, maybe we'll let you know tomorrow because I can't wait to tell you! One guess per person, please!