Aaaahhhhh Bath

We took the opportunity to spend the "bank holiday" weekend in Bath. First of all, let me dispel the myth of tons of bank holidays here. There are a total of eight, which depending on how you count US holidays is equal to or only two more than we have. What they do have is tons of vacations....five weeks. It's virtually impossible to schedule a meeting with more than 4 people without someone being on "holiday".

Bath was wonderful. It's an easy 70 minute train ride from London and worth going for the day even. It poured down rain almost the whole time (much like Memorial Day in Seattle), but that didn't slow us down. We treated our selves and stayed at the the Bath Spa Hotel (a twenty minute walk from the train station) which was something right out of a movie with maids, butlers and a drawing room. The hotel has two large swimming pools full of hot water. One is outside and it was a cool sensation to feel the cold water raining down on your face while you are surrounded by warm water. They also have a series of steam rooms and saunas with different aromatherapy scents along with a spa and a gym.

After arriving we headed to the Bath Museum which was pretty fascinating. Bath as been the place for Romans and the English to holiday for nearly the last 2000 years. The Romans discovered the hot springs in Bath back in 50 AD and thought the springs had mythical healing powers. Bath then became the social scene as well as a fashion capital (yes, I dragged Greg to the small, but interesting costume museum in Bath). The Georgina architecture in Bath is really simple and elegant. Bath's other claim to fame is that Jane Austin was a resident and wrote many of her novels there. Apparently Nicholas Cage and Jonny Depp are Bath's current celebrity residents.

Stonehenge is about an hour away from Bath so we checked it out. It was good to see, but honestly there isn't much there and the don't have much information on how or why it was built. As you can see, it was pretty windy!

Overall it was a great weekend away. We relaxed by the pool, played cards and drank wine. We arrived back in London and ready to face the hustle and bustle.

I couldn't recommend Bath enough, so add it to your list of must visits!