For a population of 84,000, this place had a small town feel, similar to Glastonbury. Another World Heritage Site, Bath has been a tourist stop for 2,000 years. This is the south side of Bath Abbey and those are real homeless guys. Bath is often referred to as the "Florence" of the UK because of its Georgian architecture.
Despite the off season -- just a few days after New Year's -- and the FRIGID weather, Bath was swarming with tourists. Guessing by the accents, a lot of them were Brits from other parts of the country and a few were "Northerners" from as far up as Scotland. Robin joked: "Maybe they came down here to warm up."
Did I mention England's swarming with skateboarders? It's hilarious. When it's -11 C, they're skating in shorts like it's San Diego.
Bath is also pretty damn rich. Nobody poor lives here ... except those homeless guys.
Tour coach doing business even in January. The River Avon runs through Bath, (along with the famous hotsprings that the Romans exploited). The museum people wanted 7.50 pounds ($12.75) just to let us walk around the ol' Roman baths. Mind you, NOBODY gets to go swimming in them anymore, which sucked because it was so cold.
We were waiting for Corrie, who had just dived into one of the posh shops, when I took this shot of Vicki and Robin. It was only 3:30 in the afternoon, but the North Atlantic sun was already sinking. It was a Sunday and the foot traffic was incredible. Bath is designed for pedestrians. We drank a lot of Cadbury's cocoa that day.
I kept expecting to see a gentleman in a tophat and cape come strolling out of one of these. Although, to a 'Merikun these look like tenament houses, they're actually very swank estates built side by side that are now worth millions and are virtually all B&Bs by reservation only. This photo was taken when the light was failing and so you can't see the amazing colors of the marble, alabaster and sandstone. Bath's buildings are all luminous flesh tones.