PAUL and LISA

We unintentionally began an exploration of Bath the night of our arrival due to poor directions and a dodgy map, which eventuated in us finding our hostel above a downtown pub. We did, however, manage to get some nice pictures of the Cathedral lit up at night as a consolation.

Our first stop the next morning was the Roman Bath's. After hearing the Cathedral Bells declare it 9am, we ventured into the historic site. Being some of the first people there, we managed to get some good photos early on without the crowds from the balcony overlooking the main bath. We made sure we got our money's worth, spending 3 hours exploring and learning about the fascinating history of spiritual and social rituals that took place during their use by the Romans. The myriad of different rooms and pools were organised for healing, business, hygiene and relaxation and utilised the natural hot spring to create a range of temperatures.

From there, our hunger led us to Sally Lunn's, "the oldest house in Bath and home of the world famous Sally Lunn Bun," which is a lot like a croissant, and probably on 'world famous' for the benefit of us tourists. We enjoyed one of these with jam and delicious clotted cream and then got on with the business of sight seeing.

The next things we passed were "the circus," which is a large circular street with a round-a-bout park area in the middle, the royal crescent, Victoria park as well as an… interesting art exhibition; a result of the artist's four year's of "self-discovery." Unfortunately (fortunately) we didn't have the £500 to buy one of the "painted-swirls" as Li put it, and so we continued on.

Finally, we enjoyed a demonstration of glass blowing and I (Paul) even got to have a go at it. Unfortunately, they didn't keep spinning the blowing pipe while I was doing it so rather than a vase I made a slightly abstract football looking bubble. We think they didn't want to risk being shown up by a tourist who might then do them out of business, ah well.

The fantastic day was ended by getting on the bus, with our newly bought food supplies and academically open minds, for the historic university town of Oxford.