Mom takes her kid to Europe with their two cats : Bath

Yarrow says this was his favourite spot of the week. A flying visit, but very photogenic, as you see! Definitely a playground of the wealthy. I couldn't really choose between photos, so I just included them all.

As you would expect of one of the prime places for historical romance novels, you can actually buy romance paperbacks in the second hand bookstore here!! I was so happy. I bought three light fluffy MC Beaton books. The market is circular and quite interesting. If we'd had more time, we could have poked around for ages.

MASSIVE Christmas market. Stalls all through this section of town. Yarrow liked it.

The Roman Baths. I think those stone guys were all daring each other to jump.

Pre-Roman coin with a cat on it!

Pre-Roman coin with a... dragon?

I wasn't in a mood for the audio guide, but had some great answers from a wandering employee.There were two levels of Roman floors, here. The original Victorian excavators thought that the top one was rubble and dug down to the lower one until they realized. You can still see the tiles in some places. I haven't taken many museumy photos but there are all the rooms: the cold plunge pools, the tepidarium, the caldarium, etc. Yarrow remembered the pillars under the caldarium where the slaves worked under the floors stoking the fires. Last time we were in a Roman bath was when he was 6 I think, in Arles!

I didn't know before that Romans made hollow bricks! The Roman bath had a huge soaring ceiling, which fell in eventually as the Saxons didn't maintain it, or broke it because they were jealous of it or something. There was actually a road running over the bath for a while.

Original Roman lead pipe, and there's a one-inch lead liner on the bottom of the pool, too. Mm. healthy. Speaking of healthy, the guide also told me that people used to bathe in it (lepers, consumptives, etc.) and then pump the water up to the pump room and drink it -- post-bathing. Really? Eep!