Toli takes a Bath

This weekend a coworker was very gracious to offer me to stay with him and show me around Bath.

Bath is beautiful. The entire city dates back to when the Romans hiked around Europe - Bath has been around since at least 4 AD!

Aside from the magnificent abbey, there are plenty of examples of beautiful Georgian architecture - the Royal Crescent, various buildings, etc. This is exactly what I expected a 'proper' English town to look like - small cobblestone streets, old buildings, pubs, fishmongers, the usual.

Of course, no proper english weekend is complete without watching a game of rugby in a pub. This was a an opening weekend for the "Six Nations Tour" - England vs. Wales. Great game, England one, celebrations ensued. Unlike soccer though, no cars or people were harmed during the celebrations. I watched the game in my "russian vodka room" bar (it's a big UK chain) Revolution, which is now sporting a "2 russian brides for £6" sign.

The weekend was rounded out nicely by driving through the misty rolling hills of the bucolic English countryside and seeing Lacock. Insert your own dirty joke here, while you are at it.

While Bath is where the "city" scenes are filmed for the Jane Austen-period movies, Lacock is the "pastoral countryside". Apparently, that's where photography was invented as well.

Which brings me to architecture: apparently the reason why Tudor houses have a slightly wider and overhanging 2nd storey is to allow people to dump their "chamber pots" on the ground from the windows. Good thing they've retrofitted the houses with real toilets by the time i showed up.
Overall, very pretty weekend.

Oh, and I finally know where the stereotype of "english food sucks" comes from - try the "english breakfast". not pretty.