Blogs from Bath, Somerset, England, United Kingdom, Europe

Wow. What a day. After dealing with our laundry delivery at 7:00, we were able to pack and head on our way. We got a car to take us to the hertz rental dealer at city airport where we picked up our car. What an adventure. As Don has never driven on the English side of the road, the drive out of London created some teeth clenching moments for me. He bounced off the left curb a few times but overall did pretty well. And I’m very glad not to be the one driving so I shouldn’t complain. We first stopped at Stonehenge. We were surprised that it is basically in the middle of a sheeps pasture. And there were sheep right there. It was smaller than we imagined but still quite impressive to think it ... read more

Departed Windsor on schedule in the am with stops in Winchester to view the cathedral (I'm sure everyone recalls the snappy tune Winchester Cathedral where the singer complains of the Cathedral letting him down). A right amazing place is the Cathedral. Ditto the one in Salisbury, which is a full twenty-five miles away. Two massive and beautiful medieval cathedrals this close. Amazing! However, some airhead deleted the outside picture of Winchester. Sorry bout that. By the way William began Winchester in 1079 with completion occurring fourteen years later, I think. At any rate we arrived in Bath about 4pm on 4 June after circling around the area several times where our apartment is located. Followed a similar lost tourist procedure in procuring a few articles from the grocery store as we remain here a week. Finally ... read more

I wanted our 3-year anniversary to be special and after hearing some good reviews about a 5-star hotel in Bath I decided to look it up and discovered through my hotel bookings I could save almost a 100 hundred a night on a room. We had originally decided to go away on our actually anniversary at the end of last year but had to cancel the booking on the day due to Fiona's older two kids having a stomach bug and subsequently we were able to rebook 2 weeks later. The reason I wanted to go to bath was because I had seen this hotel called Mcdonald Bath Spa where some of my work colleagues had stay recently and thought we could also go to the Thermae Bath Spa but unfortunately learn it is closed when ... read more

Today we had planned to visit the Roman Baths, have a swim in the spa, and then go to lunch at the Priory Hotel. After lunch we were hoping to visit the Assembly rooms and do some shopping. After breakfast we set off to arrive at the Roman Baths before it opened at 9am. The line was not too long when we arrived, and soon we had paid and picked up our audio guide. You can go at your own pace, and the audio guide provides lots of information. As you travel through the different parts of the Baths, there are also videos and other information displays. The Baths were discovered and opened up archeologically . They are quite big. Some areas have been renovated and others have just been uncovered for us to see what ... read more

Today we moved on again. It was wonderful to see the sun first thing this morning. Because Bath is not all that far from Crickhowell, we planned our trip so that we could visit Caerphilly Castle and Tintern Abbey on our way to Bath. After driving down different roads again, even though we were going close to places we went yesterday- thanks to the gps- we came to Caerphilly around 11am. This castle is the biggest castle in Wales, and was another of the chain built by Edward 1 to subdue the English. It has huge defences, a double wall and moats, and a number of different gatehouses. There was also a quite large private appartment within the castle as well. We spent about an hour climbing up and down, and looking at the different parts ... read more