Easter in Bath

Since our trip to Austria, it’s been pretty status quo here in jolly ole London. We’ve been working, hitting the gym, trying to train the dog (to be decent…we’ve given up on going for “good”), and trying to watch as much March Madness as UK television and slingbox will allow! We have done a few “London Walks” lately to continue our education of this amazing old city. “London Walks” are two-hour tours given by licensed city guides and you can choose topics that cover virtually all aspects of London’s history. They take you to different parts of the city and show you where cool old things happened that we would never have known otherwise.

We decided to take advantage of the four-day Easter Weekend and visit Bath. What a great city! It is a really relaxed, quaint, and very well preserved city. We took a 1.5-hour train ride to get there and were amazed the beautiful English countryside. We took a guided tour of Bath (and got snowed on!) and found out lots of important facts about how things used to be in the 17th and 18th centuries when the city was most fashionable. One of which was that they used to hang the toilets from the back of each floor of the houses. And occasionally when people would go to the “loo,” those rooms would crash to the ground and fall on the people walking below in the street. And as our guide told this story, the rest of our tour group gasped and grimaced. Of course, Scott and I were giggling like school kids and taking pictures. These are the essential facts that we remember about Bath!

We spent part of one day at the Bath Thermae Spa where we “took the waters” meaning that we swam in the natural spring waters and actually drank some from the spring too which was really warm and was full of minerals. Scott really enjoyed it as you can see by the pictures to the right. A few years ago, the Spas were totally redone and they have really new and beautiful facilities with a rooftop spa, aromatherapy steam rooms, etc. Although somehow I couldn’t escape the feeling that we weren’t doing things quite the same way as they did in Victorian times. Call me crazy, but floating on a blue noodle in the spring waters somehow just didn’t fit.

We also took an afternoon trip out to Stonehenge. On the way, our tour stopped to see the village of Lacock, which is one of the best-preserved places in England. The village only has about 4 streets and most of the houses there have never been renovated. Because of this, it is used by lots of film production companies and was featured in the Harry Potter movies. The day that we chose to go to Stonehenge was the coldest, windiest, and snowiest day I can remember ever experiencing in England. I was glad that they didn’t let us get too close to the stones because there was a good chance that they could have blown over on us. It’s an amazing site and it’s crazy to think about the people that made it. Thousands of years ago, before the wheel was invented, these people brought these stones – some of which weighed a few tons - to Stonehenge from hundreds of miles away! Truly an incredible feat. However because of the cold and wind, at one point, while listening to the audio guide which basically tells you that they have no idea why the stones are there, I think I may have muttered something like “This is stupid. I hate Stonehenge.” But as soon as I got back on the heated tour bus I was really pumped that we had seen it. It really was very cool to see, but if I were you, I’d wait until summertime.

Big plans in the weeks coming up for my Acupuncture course. That’s right, I’ll be taking Chinese needles into my own two hands and looking for volunteers for my “case study” in order to get my Acupuncture license. I can hear the footsteps of everyone running towards my doorstep right now…or are those footsteps running away? In any case, I think it’ll be interesting. Scott will let you know what he thinks after I’m done practicing on him!

Hope everyone had a great Easter! Go Heels!!!