If It's Thursday,

If it's Thursday, this must be Bath. We learned our lesson, travel-wise, and took the train this time. Soooooo much faster and more pleasant.

We hopped on the hop-on, hop-off bus - love these tours! - to get an overview of the city and decide what we wanted to see in our limited time here.

More locks and canals in the middle of Bath.

Interesting tidbit from the tour - see that black box with the window on the back of the center building? That's an outhouse. Once we knew what they were, we saw them all over Bath.

Bath Abbey was second on our must-see list, but it was right outside the bus door when our tour ends, so it became our first stop.

Glorious!

This area has been used for religious purposes - both pagan and Christian - since about 60 A.D.

The interior was stunning.

I loved the soaring ceilings,

stained glass windows,

and the amazing pipe organ.

Even the seats had intricately carved designs. See the falcon (griffin?) and the dragon? Such beautiful workmanship.

Top on our must-see list was the Roman Baths, which - conveniently for us - are right next door to the Abbey.

These were begun by the Romans, building on top of a natural hot spring, and added to over the centuries by other cultures. It's truly amazing what they've been able to excavate.

And they are still uncovering rooms and artifacts today.

See the guy in the yellow vest about halfway down this picture? He was marking and photographing a new find right next to the tourist path.

Our favorite artifact was the Beau Street Hoard, 8 bags of coins totaling 17,500 pieces, found in 2007 near the Baths. Some of the coins are on exhibit; they believe several people stashed the coins over several centuries. Wonderful to see some coins as they were found - dirty and lumped together - while others were clean and sparkling.

We also toured Number One The Royal Crescent, a town house completed in 1776 and decorated as it would have been in that time period. A docent in each room explained the furnishings and brick-a-brack, and put them in context with the room's occupant. Very interesting.

From the bus we saw the Circus,

and the Royal Crescent - building began here in 1734 -

but we didn't have time to investigate them further. Something for us to do on our next visit!