On our last day in England we drove to the spa town of Bath.  Bath was on my list of must-see places because of the Jane Austen novel Persuasion.  Jane Austen is one of my favorite authors and she spent several years with her family in Bath.

The Bath Abbey is absolutely beautiful but the most interesting thing about the Abbey is the carving of Jacob’s Ladder on either side of the entrance.

The ladder represents angels climbing up and down the ladder to and from heaven.  The angel climbing down the ladder reminds me of the girl at the end of that movie The Ring crawling down the stairs… creepy!

The Roman Baths are a major tourist attraction in Bath.  They were built around the only hot spring in the UK by the Romans shortly after they invaded Britain around 60 AD.  After being buried under layers of earth for hundreds of years, they were rediscovered and restored in the late 1700’s.

The waters were believed to be healing so Romans would drink and bathe in them all the time.  Now there are signs to not even touch the water because they are considered unsafe due to lead and radiation levels.  Rebecca and I didn’t know that when we suck our hands in the water.

We couldn’t leave Bath without visiting the Jane Austen center.  The center hosts tours and even has a tea room on the top level.  We didn’t have time to take the tour but we did have time for me to pillage the store for Austen memorabilia.  I even got to take a picture with this handsome gentlemen outside the center.

After a fantastic lunch we headed to our hostel in Canterbury.  We went to dinner that night in a large pub that was obviously popular with the local college crew.  The food and drink was cheap and not terrible so we were happy.  About halfway through dinner a group of six girls walked in wearing nothing but tank tops and panties.   I am not talking about boy shorts, I am talking about actual panties.  Needless to say, the college boys in the pub were blown away.  The girls ordered a pitcher of mixed drinks each.  I had no idea British girls could party so hard, they make American party girls look like amateurs.

After dinner we went for a walk around Canterbury and I got some great shots of the cathedral and historic homes.

The hostel we stayed in was also a historic home.  For 17 euro a night we got a bed, clean sheets and restroom facilities.  Not a bad deal.  If you are interested in staying in a hostel I highly recommend Hostels International.  We stayed in HI hostels during the entire trip and they were all in good locations and had clean rooms.  The picture below is the hostel we stayed in and it was within walking distance to all of the tourist attractions.