Day 14: Beaches to Baths and Bad news…in the rain

[Two posts for the price of one today as we didn’t have internet last night.]

We left the wonderful hospitality of our hosts at the George Hotel in Weymouth (we highly recommend staying with Adrian and Carol – see our review page which will be up soon) and headed north toward Bath to see what those Romans did. As it has done *every* day since we got here – rained…. again… But we are used to it now so after arriving at our hotel, we walked into the old town…. in the rain… and wandered around the shops (to get out of the rain) and the cafes (to get out of the rain) before spending the rest of the afternoon at the famous baths for which the town is named (which coincidently, got us out of the rain!)

Wow! Pretty impressive. I wasn’t sure whether I was more impressed by the structure and engineering that was thousands of years old or by the fact that I was wandering around the same places once haunted by Jane Austen! (I know – spot the geek). The carvings were wonderful and the engineering fantastic. The water in the baths themselves is pretty gross (green and ooey but we could see the steam coming off them…. in the rain). In addition, there was audiocommentary available by another favorite author of mine: Bill Bryson. That was also kinda cool.

After a while we decided to dry off for good so we headed back to the hotel to get some dinner at a local pub that was recommended. That’s when things *really* got interesting. Just as the food arrived, a bar fight broke out! It seems that one of the local lads was slagging off his girlfriend (look it up!) and she tried to tear lumps out of him! Given that she had about 50 pounds on him, it could have gotten interesting. However, things were broken up quite quickly and she was ushered out a side door. (Note: we saw the two of them walking down the street together several hours later…. go figure!) Unfortunately, Frank missed all the excitement as he was outside taking an urgent phone call from his brother. It turns out his dad is very ill and we need to head to Scotland first thing tomorrow morning. No Grand Prix for us! (Know anyone that wants tickets?) We’ve made all the arrangements we can and will hit the road early in the A.M. Say a prayer for the old man – if you are so inclined.

/san/

[Pedometer: 17,833 steps or about 8.5 miles in the rain… although it seems pretty meaningless considering]