We arrived in the late afternoon, and went for a promised swim in the hotel pool with the kids. The pool was nice and warm, and felt really good. We swam for a long time and then ordered Chinese food and ate it in our hotel room. (We didn't plan that very well, and we had no plates... let's just say we left an awful rice mess for the maid to clean up.)
The Sally Lunn Bakery is the located in the oldest house in Bath, and gets its name from a French refugee- Solange Luyon- who escaped France in 1680 and came to Bath to open a bakery in this home. She allegedly baked the first "Bath bun", which are now apparently world-renowned. (Rightly so, they were DELICIOUS.)
In the basement of the restaurant was a small museum where the kitchen existed four hundred years ago. We've seen in several cities how the street level gradually rises as the centuries go by, it's an interesting phenomenon.
All the kitchen tools were exactly as found when the kitchen was excavated not too long ago.
It ended up being really interesting and totally worth the cost.
The baths were part of a huge complex that has a fascinating history, and was certainly the heart of Roman social life in Bath. The waters have also been rumored to be healing, and for hundreds of years people would holiday in Bath to "take the waters" for anything from leprosy to infertility. Even today people believe the waters to be healing because of their heavy mineral content.
From there we walked a little further on to another circular row of buildings, The Royal Crescent. Designed by the same architect as The Circus, it is one of Bath's most iconic landmarks, and can be seen in lots of BBC films that take place in Bath.
As soon as I finished eating I walked around the corner to the Jane Austen Centre. I spent about an hour there while Richard and the kids walked back to the car, filled up with petrol, and then came and picked me up. It was fun to learn more about Jane, but the museum was mostly about her life in Bath, which was just a portion of her life. I was a little disappointed.
There is some dispute about what Jane Austen looked like, but some forensic historians used all they information they could find on her to make this wax model.
I hopped back in the car, and after a long and confusing detour we finally found our way out of Bath and back toward London. It was a long drive home in the rainy dark, but I'm glad we made the trip.