In Trips to England on April 10, 2010 by Michael Tagged: bath, england, sommerset, spring, trips
Ann had a some days off for Easter so we decided to go explore the city of Bath 150 km west of London for a couple of days.
Bath is build on a number of geothermal springs which is water from deep beneath the surface being heated and squeezed up through cracks in the limestone underneath Bath where it arrives at the surface at 45 degrees C. Over the course of history different people have used the springs for treatment of all sorts of things.
The picture above shows the layer of history that can be found in Bath. When the Romans occupied England they build a spa around 30-60AD at the site of where the Celt’s before them had worshipped one of their gods. Over 300 years the Romans build a vast complex of bath, spas and temples at the site. After the Romans left the huge complex it got flooded and collapsed and forgotten(!) around the 6th century. You can see the original Roman columns reach about 1½ meters above the water. Below that mark things were covered in rubble and protected above that the locals at later centuries took the material for their use. So literally what is below that line is the foundations, plumbing and structure build nearly 2000 years ago that still leads the water in lead pipes and supports the building above. The Roman Baths were not rediscovered until around 1880 when one of the owners of a house on top of the site complained about getting his basement filled with water. Later the columns and museum was build on top of the Roman remains.
The balcony is at the level of the current street level and in the background of the picture is the Bath Abbey. The abbey also have a long history dating back about 12 centuries, this one is the third church at this site that has been in that place since from 1499.
The city of Bath got a renaissance in the 18th and 19th century when it became fashionable again to go to the spas. John Wood senior and junior were great architects of the time and build a number of world class landmarks like senior’s Circus above or junior’s Royal Cresent below.
While we were in Bath the annual Comedy Festival was going on so we got to see the central square being filled up with red people and a great street theatre called Jane Austen’s Bath Time.
We had a great couple of days exploring this UNESCO World Heritage city. For a more comprehensive description of what we got up to go read Ann’s blog of our day 1, day 2, day 3 and see the video she made :)
In Living in London on March 29, 2010 by Michael Tagged: biking, charity, cycletastic, farmers market, London
Spring is here and it’s time to get the rust and spider webs off the bikes. I’m helping out in a local organisation called Cycletastic that promotes cycling by fixing bicycles, teaching how to navigate the streets, organising workshops etc. There are some really cool people involved and I enjoy taking part in the events put on. I can do the basic maintenance but still got plenty to learn so this way I get to help other people while I learn more about bikes; a true win-win :)
This Sunday we set up a booth at the farmers market in Queens Park and held the first “Dr. Bike” event of the year. Here is one of the guys from Cycle Training UK helping me out with a kids bike.
We had Ann to help manage the queue and with six fixers we had our hands on 41 bikes in four hours. Busy times but it was great to help people get their bikes back on the road.
The cycling culture in London is still not that widespread but there are a lot of initiatives from the city and from non-profit outfits like the Cycletastic, Cycle Training UK and London Cycling Campaign. The people I meet from these organisations are really passionate about getting people to bike and it is great to see the grass-root spirit involved.
In Blogging, Living in London on March 27, 2010 by Michael Tagged: bloggers, event, London, Meeting bloggers, OYLB
The travel agency LastMinute.com has started publishing a monthly top 50 list of travel and lifestyle blogs in London/UK. To kick that off they organized an event they called Oh You Lucky Bloggers at Planet Hollywood. It’s not like Ann or I has made it into the list but it’s always fun to get out and meet other bloggers. The event was great, mingling with the cool crowd of London blogosphere.
I’m not sure how the list is compiled but there are some really cool blogs on it – go have a look yourself.
There is a couple of my favorite London blogs that hasn’t made the list so I figured I’d give them props here:
- IanVisits – Ian is constantly on top of what’s going on under and over ground in London events.
- London Cyclist – Andreas is really busy creating resources for the biking crowd in London
- Ghost signs – Not exclusively a London site but very interesting nonetheless with old painted signs on house.
- From The Upper Deck – Another quirky blog where Przemek drives around on the double deckers of London and takes pictures out the window as London life goes by below him.
- Georgian London – excitingly writings about life in London in the 18th century
- Scandinaivian Kitchen – for everything homely on London
