Roman Baths

Tuesday, September 5th. We drove from Bristol to Bath which was only about a 30 min drive. The hardest part was once again finding a dang parking lot to park in. Only residents of the homes on the other side of the wall are allowed to park on the street or apparently the sidewalk. 

We have seen so many castles, cathedrals and old historic buildings that I wasn't to excited to see the Roman Baths. However, I was pleasantly surprised! We saw and touched some amazing artifacts. It really was pretty cool to see. 

After we paid our entrance fee we were asked to climb the stairs to the very top and work our way down. So at the top we were able to look over into the baths. 

Above us, also looking down into the baths were many statues of elite soldiers and conquers that played an important part in History. 

  

This is what the Romans Bath looked like at one point. 

This was part of an entryway.

 We saw a lot of interesting and super old artifacts! 

 It's hard to believe that these Roman Bath's are so old!

There were 8 bags of money found buried in a corner that are now on display.  

Amazing! 

These coins were on the earth before Christ. 

Wow!

This is a real skeleton remain found in a wooden coffin that had been made from wood. The wood coffin had decayed and was not salvageable to be put on display. However the cloth inside the coffin can be seen under his remains.  Using today's science a replica of what this man would have looked like can be seen. Awesome! 

 Possible worshiping statues, water and oil pitchers, plates, utensils all found either in the Roman Bath or in this specific area.  

The natural warm springs comes in one side and fills up 2 main pools. 

At one point the pools and saunas could be used by any sex, male or female. But do to the frolicking that accured in the pools they were eventually separated. One was designated for females,the other males.  

Next to each pool was a sauna. At one time there would have been slabs of rock on top of all those stacks of hot rock. Boiler's built under ground would keep these rooms super hot. With the boilers and the natural warm water running between all the stacks of rock it became quite the sauna inside. 

Leaving the building we were able to have some fresh hot water from the spring.  

 It tasted minerally and very warm!

After leaving the baths, we did a little grocery shopping for breakfast and wandered around town. 

This sign was taped to a front door. 

Does it really work?

The driving/parking here cracks me up!

Most of the time people are parked on the side of the road but also on the sidewalk. And they aren't parked facing the direction of the flow of traffic. 

Every once in a while on the highway we'll a passing lane.

Then there's this guy who apparently is passing the parked car but then we watched him continue to drive on that dotted line until an oncoming car came and made him get back into his own lane. 

 Then you've got these cars who park in front of homes on the grass. 

Weird! 

Several times we have passed a bus who has pulled over to let it's passengers off or to collect more people. The surrounding cars don't STOP, so they don't even slow down! They just drive around the bus. Meanwhile people are crossing the road ON the cross walk with cars swerving around them. It's really crazy to see.