I am for. . . for Bath.

Friday was a great day. Our teachers decided that after a week in London we'd probably need a rest, so first thing Friday morning, they took us to Bath. No class, no assignments, just relaxation. (Ha!)

We went on the train from Paddington station (I didn't see any teddy bears) in the morning. It's about a 2 hour trip on the train. We had all been up pretty late the night before, so most people went back to sleep, but I couldn't-- there was just too much to see out the windows! We went through beautiful English countryside-- all nice patchwork fields with little villages, each with their steepled grey church . . . and the wildflowers were amazing. (Texas doesn't even think of having wildflowers in July!) I couldn't take my eyes off the window. I like this England.

In Bath we stayed at the YMCA, which has a really nice dorm-type area. And as soon as we got our rooms, we were free to go anywhere we liked! It was wonderful. The town is amazing, and particularly so for me, because of Jane Austen . . . it even looks like it's still in Jane Austen's time, mostly. The buildings are all in brownish-yellow stone, which makes for a beautiful town, and most of them are in the Georgian style, built just before her time. You can almost imagine you're walking around with Anne Elliot, Captain Wentworth or Catherine Morland.
But it's a modern city too-- a big tourist destination for its Roman Baths (after which the town is named), and for its shopping.

I did some shopping on Friday, though not much buying, and then I went and spent quite a while in Bath Abbey-- a really beautiful church. I can't remember when it was built, but it's late gothic, of some kind, with wonderful fan vaulting, stained glass windows . . . I really can't describe it.

Then we went as a group to the Roman Baths-- they reconstructed one of the pools in the 17-1800s sometime, and that's the one you see in the pictures, but I had no idea how big the original complex was! They have a bunch of it excavated now, under the buildings and streets around-- you go down in the basement and see all this. It's a natural hot spring that's been there since Celtic times, which was diverted into baths by the Romans, who also built a city there. It was cool to see all of it.

Then a bunch of us went up to Royal Victoria Park, in front of the Crescent, which is a famous Georgian building shaped like-- yeah-- a crescent! It's really pretty. We played frisbee and sat on the grass-- the weather was lovely-- sunny, but not hot.

The rest of the time was just spent wandering around the little city-- I even saw the street with the columns, where Captain Wentworth kisses Anne while the circus people are going by!