Bath

Because of the parking congestion in Bath, we drove to a Park And Ride on the outskirts of the city, and took the bus into the town. After a coffee we joined the 10:30 walking tour which went for a tad over 2 hours.

Saw the River Avon (a different one to Stratford), Pulteney Bridge, the oldest continuously running hospital in the world, the Jane Austen museum, and lots of groundbreaking Georgian architecture including Royal Crescent and The Circus designed by John Wood the Elder and John Wood the Younger - the first crescent and the first circle buildings in Britain.

After lunch we tackled the Roman Baths which have had a restoration and makeover since Mandy was here in the seventies, and is now a state of the art museum with an audio guide, projected visual images, glass floors over the ruins, and somewhere to taste the mineral water. With the audio guide we got lots of the history, and the tour took us to see the baths, the pump rooms, and the mechanics behind the filling, draining and maintenance. The level has been lowered back to the old Roman level from the high Georgian level, and is now as the Roman's built it. Really interesting, and very well presented.

Lastly we headed over to the Bath Abbey built in 1499 just before Henry VIII decided to dissolve them all. If you happen to be an aficionado (and I'm not) it's the last great medieval church, and the most outstanding example of perpendicular English Gothic architecture. All that shows you is that I can read the guide books. Inside is the grave of Sir Isaac Pitman who invented shorthand and kept generations of schoolgirls miserable, and Governor Arthur Phillip who was the first governor of the new Australian penal colony which now keeps generations of English sports fans miserable. Also went underground and toured the Abbey's museum.

In the evening we watched England qualify for the second round of the World Cup by winning their first match (go figure), and then the longest ever game of tennis. It lasted exactly 10 hours before it was called for light without a result yet being obtained. The last set is locked at 59-59, they have served 98 and 95 aces respectively, and it's now going into a third day without a rain interruption! The last set itself has gone longer than the previous longest match at around 9 hours.