Last day in Bath, first day in London

Again we had a quiet morning, and we took advantage of this and slowly sorted our things and packed up ready to leave for London the next day

  

At midday we went to the pump room at the Roman Baths and Gadget and I had a high tea.  

It was really quite an experience to sit in such a grand room , with a pianist. Sipping Darjeeling tea and eating yummy treats.  In this room I could easily picture women swishing around in regency gowns. It was all very Jane Austen.

       

We then spent sometime wandering around enjoying the beautiful city of Bath

     

Roman Baths

We chose a late entry into the Roman Baths to avoid the large crowds.  It was a great idea, it was pretty quiet there.

      

As I explained in the first post Bath was originally settled when the Roman legions discovered a natural spring.

      

This spring produces approximately 1 171 000 litres of water every day. The water that rises is about 47 degrees celcius and you can see in the image above the steam coming off the water. 

The romans thought that the spring was the work of the gods and very quickly built a temple beside the spring and dedicated it to sulis Minerva, a healing goddess.

       

  being the super clever people that they are they  created a serious of pipes and channels which directed the water into the various baths they created with in the complex... purposefully allowing the water to be exposed to the air at times, ensuring the bath temperatures were perfect.  

The complex also has an amazing museum, with lots of artefacts found on or around the site, they have found many in the hot spring where they believe they were a gift to the gods

   

 

These Roman baths have separate areas for women and men, in the women's area they used these fabulous screens (unfortunately the photo isn't very clear)  to show what would happen in each of the rooms. I have to say this site has  done a wonderful job using technology, it really made the experience so much more enjoyable.

   

This was our "local" when we were in bath, it was called the Crystal Palace, as you can see it was beautifully decorated and it was maybe 5 metres from our front door, by the time we left we knew the owners dogs name and had befriended a few off the staff, 

 We packed up early the next morning and caught a train to London. Arriving at Paddington station. I got to meet Paddington bear and then we had to quickly get our heads around the underground. 

As we emerged from the underground the first thing we seen was Nelson's column, which was pretty cool.

We found our home for the next seven nights and then had to duck out quickly to grab something before attending our first theatre experience in London 

Globe theatre

So what do you do on your first night in London ... well you go to the globe theatre and watch Shakespeare.

The performance that night was of "Much Ado about Nothing"

 

The original Globe theatre was built in 1599, it was owned by six men, one of whom was William  Shakespeare.  The original was burned down in 1613 when a prop malfunctioned during a performance of Henry VIII.  It was rebuilt and back in operation the following year, however was closed down in in 1642 by the Puritans.

The current Globe theatre was opened in 1997, it an acadaemic approximation of the original design and is located just 230 metres from the site of the original.

 

I have to say I was a little concerned about this for several reasons, the first I tried to make Gadget watch the movie of this twice, each time he fell asleep and we had had a long day. Second rather than performing this in Italy where it was originally set, they had it set in Mexico.  I really shouldn't have worried, Gadget loved it and the performance was amazing, the whole crowd was laughing throughout and absolutely glued to the performance . . . . 

Such a great performance.

As we walked out of the theatre we seen the above image 

Ciao

Googy Girl