We decided to end our holiday somewhere with a lot of history, and preferably somewhere quite different from places on our journey so far. Bath is just that, with beautiful Georgian architecture, fabulous roman and medieval baths, more churches than in Adelaide (!!), great shops, and a very plush hotel with old style fittings including a four poster bed.

The spa baths have been in existence since ancient roman times . The whole Baths complex is still in very good condition, and is now part of a museum that includes the upper terrace with statues of Caesars and other important people, therapy tubs, swimming pools, cold pools, saunas, plus the whole drainage system is still in working order, including the spring where 240,000 gallons of water used to feed the baths each day. It is a fabulous display, and it gave us a good idea how the Roman baths in Pompeii would have looked before the volcano completely wrecked them.

Next to the Baths is the 'Late Perpendicular Gothic' style Abbey - no idea what that actually means, but the architecture is beautiful with delicate fan vaulting and stained glass on the lower smaller windows rather than on the larger top windows (apparently the abbey was bombed in the 2nd world war, and the town could not afford to replace both the top and bottom sets of windows with stained glass). With clear glass on all the top windows, the Abbey is unusually light inside which I think makes it much more attractive than the usual dark-filled cathedrals we have seen on this trip . We climbed the 212 steps up a narrow spiral stairway to the top of the tower which provided us with great views over the Roman Baths as well as a view over a very large modern spa (nowhere near as fabulous as the Roman baths despite it being perched up high on the roof of a building). The young lady who took us up the tower does 5-6 trips each day in the tourist season, and had the legs to prove it!

Bath has amazing pale beige sandstone terrace houses, two blocks in particular being world renowned: the Circus, and the Royal Crescent. These two apartment blocks were built in the 18th Century by a father and son team, and they are truly beautiful. The Circus is a circular building set around a small circular park, and the Royal Crescent is a semi circular building overlooking a big park (it's called Royal because a member of the royal family lived there years ago. As an aside, and so as not to be outdone by royalty, Thomas Gainsborough apparently lived in The Circus). Each of the entrances on the buildings are wide enough to take a sedan chair, presumably because the wealthy tenants were too lazy to walk through the doors under their own steam!! I had tried to book an apartment in the Royal Crescent for our last couple of nights, but it was already booked which was probably a good thing, given our second option (the Francis Hotel) was really elegant and exceedingly comfortable .

Bath has a shop lined bridge, one of only a few in the world, and although it is compared by the locals to the Ponte Vecchio bridge in Florence, it is nowhere near as cute. But the little cafes on the bridge do overlook a beautiful weir on the Avon River, where the water rushes in a semi-circular motion down stream. We would have taken photos of the bridge but the fog still had not lifted at 2pm, AND it was still raining, AND it was too cold to take my gloves off to take a photo (note - I did manage to take a photo next day!). We also climbed up the hill behind the city to Alexandra Park where we sort of caught a glimpse of the city through the fog. Despite the weather, we could see dozens of tiny little squirrels playing tag with each other over the fields and up the trees. They are so cute, with their bouncy steps and big bushy tails.

The shops in Bath were already starting to get busy for Xmas, but on the day we left the Christmas Market started. The market is held in small wooden chalets that are placed around the Abbey, with each stall holder decorating his or her chalet with fake snow, tinsel and holly. We were told that each day the market operates, around 9-10 coaches full of shoppers and special trains full of shoppers turn up in Bath, swamping the shops and chalets. When we arrived at the train station to catch our train back to London, hundreds of very determined looking shoppers were already disembarking from the trains, and racing to be first at the shops. We decided that it was a very good time to be leaving!

Off to Heathrow tomorrow. Boo Hoo !