Bath

5-8 July, 2007

From here on in, our blogs are probably going to be mostly pics and fairly random stories. We're on the road for the next 6 months, jobless and homeless, and will be updating the blog whenever we have a spare few hours waiting for buses, laundry or when it's free!

The journey begins in Bath, the one place in England that we hadn't yet visited and probably one of the places highest on the list for us to see.

It definitely lived up to expect-ations. The whole city is heritage listed (it's the only one in Britain). The architecture was amazing and unique, especially that in Royal Avenue (pictured) and the Circus where the outsides of the houses are all pretty much the same and cannot be altered by the owners, it's council law, but the back yards are all unique. Most of the city's architecture can be credited to John Wood 'the elder' (not Tom Croydon) and his son, John Wood 'the younger'. There are a lot of trees in the way of some of his buildings, hence the saying, 'can't see the wood for the trees.' (You learn something new every day!)

Obviously, we visited the ancient Roman Baths. It's what you do when you visit Bath, apparently. We spent hours looking around learning interesting facts.

• 1.17million litres of water comes from the spring every day.


• It's thought to have healing powers.


• Other stuff, but we can't remember right now because our brains are frizzled!

One of the highlights of the baths was tasting the water as we left the complex. It has a rediculous number of minerals in it and it tastes pretty ordinary, but it's meant to be good for you? Davo had to skull it.

For anyone planning a visit to Bath, they must do the walking comedy tour. The funny guy pretends to drown a fluffy rabbit teddy bear called Stu in the river, then he borrows a wedding ring from an audience member, ties it to a helium balloon which he accidentally lets go of and we all watch it float over the massive Bath Abbey, we all think it's gone, and then Stu comes around the corner on a remote control car and has the ring in a little package. Very tricky and Fi and I still can't figure out how it all worked.

After Bath, we spent a few hours waiting for a bus back to London in Bristol. We used this time to sit in a pokey little pub called the White Hart and eat some 'pie minister' pies (best pies in the world). Davo finished reading Harry Potter, quite appropriate given the surroundings (in a pub with the atmosphere of the Hogs Head in Hogsmeade and named after a white stag!)

We spent the night in London catching up with Cookie who has just moved to London from Hong Kong. Hence the photo of us and Cookie! Nice one!