Day Three - Bath

The second half of our day was concerned with the city of Bath, which was about 30 minutes southeast from Bristol. Our adventure here had nothing to do with Wesley per se, although he did preach there at least once. Bishop Fannin read for us an account from one of Wesley's journals about a confrontation that happened here between Wesley and a Mr. Nash while Wesley was preaching. Mostly it was a cultural and historical stop – to tour the abbey, as well as its famous hot spring, over which the Romans built an entire complex of baths starting in 60AD.



We did the audio tour partly with the group and partly on our own to see baths and then with some time left to spare before our assigned meeting at the bus, we set off on our own to explore the town, including the park along the River Avon and the famous Pulteney bridge. It is one of only four bridges in the world with shops across the full span on both sides (the others are in Italy). As a heritage site, it is now a pedestrian only zone.

On one street corner, we noticed something with a familiar ring to it. Remember Cows on Parade in Chicago? Ocala had its Horses on Parade. Apparently Bath had pigs on parade back in 2008. It dates back to an old legend about King Bladud as well as his pigs being cured of leprosy by rolling around in the hot mud surrounding the springs in 836BC.

We left about 4:30 and drove through heavy traffic to get back to Harris Manchester College for dinner at 6:45pm, where we enjoyed chicken curry with rice, flatbread, chickpeas (like hushpuppies), with spring rolls and chutney and ice cream for dessert. Later we gathered all together in the Charles Wellbeloved room to reflect on our day, led by Lisa. We headed back to the University Club about 8:30pm and watched the last few at bats of a cricket game going on outside in a steady drizzle. Then we headed out to the local crowded pub for drinks with the Degrenias and Opalinskis, where the men tried the ale on tap and the women tried "shandys" - ale mixed with Sprite - as we talked and visited. We had a wonderful time getting to know each other better. We finally crashed in our room about 10:30pm.