Day 1: Bath

On Thursday morning we wandered into a little town near the west coast of England called Bath. Only shortly after the death of Christ, the Roman's expanded their empire as far as here, and named it Aquai Sulis. It became a pilgrimage destination for its widely popular hot springs, which Celtic tribes used for ceremonies, and Roman's attributed to their sea goddess, Minerva. Because the hot springs bubble and are so warm, it was concluded that they must be of divine origin. So they built a temple, and the beautiful Roman Bath's you can see in my photos, and Bath became a center of pagan worship.
Only a few centuries later, Europeans destroyed the temple, built the beautiful Bath Abbey on top of it, and translated the Anglo-Saxon Gospels (becoming the first Bible translators to the English speaking world). But the Roman Bath House still stands. 

Several hundred years later, an English architect, inspired by the Roman Bath House and Italian architecture, decided he wo

uld make Bath the "new Rome." The entire town is crafted out of beautiful white bathstone, and when it is sunny (like it was on Thursday and Friday) the town literally shines.

We ate at a little pub on Thursday night (very little - actually, the smallest pub in Britain). We decided to give meat pie a chance, and it wasn't bad (though, in classic English style, there wasn't much to taste at all). Friday we took High Tea at the Pump Room, and it was delicious.