Bath trip part two: Roman baths and outfit

After visiting the Marilyn Monroe exhibition, we headed into the centre of Bath, to visit the Roman baths - after all, it'd be rude not to. The city is named for it and I have no doubt that many people were worked half to death to build it. There was way more to see than is depicted in these photos, some of my favourites being the ancient curses scratched into lead sheets and thrown into the waters, asking the gods for retribution against bathing suit thieves! Built to the godess Sulis Minerva, the baths are a world heritage site and one of the finest Roman historical sites outside Italy.


The first part of the Roman baths were built over 2000 years ago on the site of a natural hot spring (the water exits the ground at 46C (115F) at a rate of 15,624 gallons (18,764 US gallons) per day), with the ground level being built in the latter part of the first century AD. In the picture above you can see the bases of the pillars of the original Roman roof, which collapsed around the fourth century AD when the spread of Christianity forced ancient Pagan places of worship to fall into disrepair.


Here is the terrace around the great bath, built by the Victorians who added to the centuries-old Roman architecture to meet demand for access to the waters by those seeking to relax or soothe their ailments.


Statues of the great Roman emperors were added between 1894-97. Here I am touching Julius Caesar's bottom, like a naughty wee scamp. The Japanese tourists did not approve.


The Gorgon's head, entrance archway to the original Roman temple whose pieces were retrieved from the bottom of the hot spring.


This is what happens when you aren't meant to go into the water but also fail to equip your curators with one of those pool-scoops for fishing out leaves, sticking plasters, floating turds etc. not that any of those things are present in the baths, but this piece of paper was giving the man great cause for concern and he stood there willing it to come nearer to him for at least fifteen minutes. I thought he might explode from the concentration.



Little ceramic dog effigy found in the baths, it looks just like my dog, Scamp! Apart from the enormous cock, that is. Actually...


Manmade waterfall inside the baths building, channeling hot water from the source pool to the rest of the baths.


Outfit post! Fruit hat by me at Kalandra Jane Designs, sweater - TK Maxx, Skirt - made by me, one of my pieces for my Autumn wardrobe project, Bag - Lux De Ville at Rockers. I was also wearing brown low-heeled T-bar shoes from Peacocks.



Finally we ate before heading home. We had planned to go to Bath's only vegetarian restaurant, Demuth's, but found ourselves turned away. They advertise an 'earlybird special' starting at 5pm, we arrived a little after that only to be told that we could not be accommodated despite there being four people in the whole place, because they were holding all the tables for a large group coming in later. Don't offer a god damn earlybird special if you can't be bothered to honour it! Also, I don't particularly think £15.90 per person for two courses is good value, in Manchester two of you could eat for that price. In the end we went to The Real Italian Pizza Co., where I had a delectable pepper, artichoke and olive cheeseless pizza and Paul devoured an enormous pancetta salad bowl.