Bath

Today was a beautiful day, lots of sunshine and a few clouds in a beautiful blue sky. We got up early because,well, #1, we couldn't sleep due to the sunshine coming thru the curtains. #2, we needed to get to the Roman Baths early before the crowds. This weekend happens to be a Bank Holiday in the UK and there is a music festival/Fringe Festival this week also. So we have a triple whammy of tourists. We loved walking thru the streets before the hoards got up. We are just 2 blocks from the baths, the Abbey and the shopping(you can hear Allen groan). We toured the baths, which where very fascinating and a lot more extensive than I realized, then we went on a Hop on/off bus around the city. Bath is a World Heritage site just like Edinburgh. So much of it has been preserved that its very easy to imagine carriages and sedan chairs with finely dressed Lords and Ladies in them going to "take the waters'". We also went to the Fashion Museum, very interesting, but Allen wasn't impressed at all. He said it was 15 minutes he will never get back. We visited the Abbey, which of course was very beautiful. It had beautiful stained glass windows, 56 of them, and a wonderful fan ceiling and the requisite tombs/monuments galore. The front of the Abbey had carvings on each side of the window that are of a ladder with angels anscending to heaven and coming down. We are going to go back on Wednesday morning to climb up to the clock tower. We ended the day walking along the streets enjoying the sunshine. Mom and I went back to the apartment, while Debbi and Allen took a river cruise on the river Avon, one of many with the same name. We learned today that when the Romans were here 2000(yikes!) years ago, they liked naming rivers. They asked the local people what the names of different rivers were and they were told "Avon". Well, Avon means "river", so there are a lot of River-Rivers in the UK. Debbi and Allen enjoyed the cruise and got some great pictures. What Debbi didn't like was the bugs and Allen had a good time drinking beer with the Australians he met.
(This day has 4 pages. Lots of pics)

One of the few times we have been able to get a picture of us all