Bath

Ok, so it’s not Ireland or Scotland or Wales, but Bath is a pretty neat place. We got to the train station in the morning to look up prices for the other three places. It would have cost us at least two hundred bucks to make it to Ireland and about the same for Scotland. I only would have cost a hundred to go to Wales, but we didn’t even know what to do there, so we decided to just take a day trip to Bath. It was worth it.

Bath, by the way, is a very old place where, when the Romans expanded across that part of England, they found a miraculous hot spring. Seeing that it was a holy place, they decided to build a temple to their water gods and whatnot and to build a really awesome spa to channel the power of the spring. Probably around the second century they build the enormous complex which stands beneath a very large portion of the surrounding city with the enormous bath complex at the epicenter. It is absolutely amazing to know that there is an entire city under the existing city in all directions. All of the old temple and city still remains unexcavated about 15 feet below ground.

I am really starting to gain quite an appreciation for old remnants of past societies. After having gone to a bunch of WWII sites a week or two ago I realized just how destructive the elements are for structures that people create. It is amazing to see enormous steel and cement structures that were built to withstand intense bombings but have been annihilated over the past 60 years by the elements. The wind and rain and ocean have completely changed the landscape around the old battle sites over the past 60 years. To think that anything at all exists of the Roman cities after two thousand years is amazing. It is also pretty amazing that an entire city has been built on top of a Roman city. I’m not even sure how that sort of trend starts. The spring and bath wasn’t even discovered until the mid-19^th century. How did people not look at the river coming out from under their city and wonder where it came from? I would certainly be curious.

It was neat though to be walking around this ancient bath realizing that during Jesus’ life there were people standing exactly where I was, wondering how this mysterious hot water came to be.

I think a lot more happened yesterday, but I’ve filled a page, so that’s sufficient.