First day of walking all over the place

One of the things that I regretted on our last trip to England was that I didn’t bring a tripod. This time I brought it. We’ve been able to take better pictures when we get to use it, but as it turns out, you don’t to use a tripod everywhere.

We first went to the Abbey. It was closed for a wedding. Then we went to the Roman Baths (about 50ft away). They noticed my tripod as we entered, and the nice and friendly girl at the counter told me that I would get attacked by ninjas if they saw me use it. I did not use it once.

It was very cool (uh warm). The waters in the natural springs were hot enough that there was a cool rolling fog coming off the water.

The cool thing about this place is that it’s part original works from the romans, and some recreation. It all blends together to create the feel of what it would have been like during the day. They even show you the drainage stuff underground.

And there are other side baths that are in other rooms. They encourage you to throw money in this one in particular.

We got out of there and the wedding party was just getting out of the church. It was cool to hear the bells of the abbey going off in celebration. But we lost interest in that in about 2 minutes and decided to go get lunch.

We got lunch at Sally Lunn’s house. It’s the oldest house in Bath (1482). It’s a restaurant now. We got seated in the Jane Austin room and Heather got all giddy.

We figured the wedding was over, and sure enough… We could get into the abbey.

We donated and walked right in. Since it was dark I reached for the tripod, when I got jumped by a priest. He said something about copyrights and not being able to use a tripod without special permission and I think something about signing over the pictures to the church. He said I could use the tripod as a monopod. I was thankful that God doesn’t completely hate tripods, because it was pretty dark in there.

It was a beautiful church. I think I have a thing for old churches, because on our last vacation, I think took about 3-4 shots like this in other places. Maybe it’s the cool stained glass.

Or the tombs…

or the massive organs..

“That’s what she said!” –Michael Scott

Since it wasn’t only me on vacation, we had to go somewhere that Heather wanted to go… The dreaded Jane Austen Museum. Everyone was in costume of the era, and it wasn’t so bad. They talked about Bath and the influence that it had on Jane Austen. They even told us where she used to live. We did stop by there later, but it was a dentist’s office, and honestly wasn’t worth the picture.

We kept walking up to the Royal Crescent. It’s where the rich people live. As we learned at the Jane Austen Museum (never thought I’d say that), the rich lived there and the further down you go on Gay Street (never thought I’d say that either) the poorer you were. In front of the place was this massive park called Royal Victoria. It was a great view.

We finished off the day with some afternoon tea from the Pump Room. Where Heather told me it was used in Jane Austen stories (I should have known that’s why she wanted to stop).

It was the traditional afternoon tea with scones and sandwiches. The scones were delicious.

They also brought us some Bath water from the Roman Bath. It tasted like bath water. Bleh! I asked our server what he honestly thought of the water. He agreed that it was horrid.

Then we walked all over town taking a ton more pictures. Overall it was a good day, and turned out to be a Jane Austen love-fest for Heather. I’m glad she got something a little extra out of today.

I’m a little nervous for tomorrow…. Tune in tomorrow for the cliffhanger!