Bath By Bus...

We're tired.  Not tired, like jet lag tired.  We are tired of climbing 3 sets of stairs "tired".  So today we took the double decker bus around Bath and around Bath. We could sit there and not walk.  See, there is so much traffic here that there is nowhere to park.  In fact, we are within walking distance of Victoria Park where you can get the sightseeing bus. Now, let me explain "walking distance".  What I'm talking about is BRITISH "walking distance," not American "walking distance.  In fact, thinking about it, American Walking Distance is an oxymoron. The only time Americans walk is on a treadmill.

We watched that park and thought, early in the morning there should be  no parked cars.  After all, who goes to the park at 6 a.m.?  Well, Apparently the British do.  Because again today, no place to park in the park!  I asked the hotel manager (who is from Germany) why and he said there is no place to park in downtown Bath, so people park in the park (funny alliteration!) and WALK to work.  See what I mean???  That's a new one:  WALKING TO WORK (UNAMERICAN, I THINK!)

ANYWAY, we pounded the pavement for what Americans would call a long distance to the bus stop and took the bus around.  Fun.  And we went back to the Roman baths, which we had seem 26 years ago.  Now it is a big deal, with those headsets and re-enactors and everything!  Back then it was the Pump Room, where you drank the vile water -- and a clump of rocks.  Now it is the New Expanded Bath, ready for Prime Time.

But the funnest fact we learned was how the people in Bath lived in the late 1700s-early 1800's during the Georgian period!  First of all,you came to Bath during the "Season" to "take the waters." The ladies would get up at 6 a.m.  Now, those rounded things that look like bay windows are not bays.  They were really outside staircases where your servants would schlepp up your sedan chairs to take you to the spa at 6 a.m. You get to ride.  Your servant gets to carry you!  Where you would stand up to your chin in the hot bubbling water for 2 hours.  Then you'd drink a cup of the vile water.  Then you'd eat 2 "good for you" wheatix type biscuits and your servants would take you home. In the sedan chair.  Where you would put on your corsets and layers of your clothes. So you could have lunch.  Which was only 6 courses and would take 2 hours.  THEN you'd go out and walk for an hour, because at 3 you had to have tea.  Which isn't just "tea".  It is little sandwiches, petit fours, jam, clotted cream biscuits, etc etc. When that was over, you went to rest. (I can understand why, can't you?)

Because at 5 you had the big dinner-- with 10 courses.  THEN, at 7, you had to dance.  First, the minuet, which took 2 hours.  Then you danced "country dances", whatever those are.  Until 11 p.m.  when you went to bed --- and the next day begins again at 6 a.m. with the sedan chair.  Why, I ask, were they so thin? Seems they were eating all the time!  Or was it the corsets???? No way would I wear a corset--not even Spanxx.  My tiny 80 pound mother said all girdles do is push the fat either up above or down below.  And mother always spoke the truth!!

Tonight we go to dinner at some tavern called "The Moon and Sixpence".  Not so formal.  And tomorrow, we take off to St. Mawes in Cornwall! I want some fish and chips wrapped in newsprint!!  (Bos says they banned the newsprint part because its not good for you!) Who cares what Bos says!!

'Circus'

Two of dozens of "Lions of Bath"

Canal for Avon (Celtic for river) River

The Cresent where "anybody who was anybody" lived
(Till the next new development was built)