So many puns available I couldn't decide on a title

Whilst exploring this dark, damp island people call Britain, there are some things you just have to do. Bath is one of those places - according to one tour book, it's the single best city to explore outside of London. Since the Gates Scholars are full of intrepid foreigners eager to have an 'authentic' British experience but not look too much like tourists, a group of us took a charter bus to see this very old city whose hygenic implements go back a millenium before the battle of Hastings.

But on the way, we ran into another must-see British tourist attraction: a very large pile of rocks.

A lovely shot of us in front of...HEY, THAT'S NOT LAURA!!!

Apparently there are many such 'henges' around Britain, but this one grabs all the attention. Despite our (successful) efforts to convince my friend Victor that the rocks were shipped in boats from Australia, the actual technology used to erect these large rocks is fairly impressive, (moreso if you're an early neolithic cave dweller whose main use of mathematics involves the most efficient way to club your next meal or future wife and drag it/her into your bachelor pad). I've seen it now, and I bet the rocks will still be there in another few thousand years.

It just looks like we're jumping high because the rocks are so small.

Bath, meanwhile, is a lovely city, once you get over the confusion about how to pronounce a common American word which is also an English place; how long do you really want that vowel to be? If you're like me, your main impression of Bath comes from Jane Austen novels in which the wealthy people are always making trips there for their complexion or something while the young poor protagonist feels awkwardly out of place, not to mention the inevitable worrying over whether [standoffish male love interest] really likes her or if the family's reputation will be damaged by [naive female relative's] dangerous liason with [roguish military officer who's really no good for her].

I managed to catch Jane for a photo-op while she was contemplating the social plight of 19th Century lower-class English ingenues...she keeps pretty busy like that.

If you hadn't guessed, Bath is named for the Roman baths which were built during the Roman rule of Britain 2000 years ago. The Romans took their bathing seriously - supposedly a non-Roman asked the Roman commander at Bath how often he bathed, and he was ashamed that his duties only allowed him time to bath once per day. (It was because the barbarians saved so much time by not bathing that they decided to take up other hobbies, like undermining the Roman Empire, and yoga).

The audio tour took so long, the water turned green...

The baths are quite a site - the bath part used to have a covered roof but is now outside, and the outside section is now under a roof, so you have to use your imagination a bit. There are some lovely sound-only exhibits where you can hear a goat being slaughtered so an augerer can read your fortune from its entrails. Also, instead of a wishing well, they had a cursing well, where you could carve nasty things about someone on a coin and throw it in (don't say what you cursed for, though, or it won't come true!). Ah, Rome. Right on plumbing, but they had some more progress to make in fortune-telling and curse-selling.

Bath also has beautiful architecture from a more recent period. The city's status as a resort for the rich led to many architects designing master works for the elites who lived or vacationed here. Among these are the King's Circus and the Royal Crescent, where architect John Wood (no relation to the Community College) showed the unique beauty of curves instead of corners. The Royal Crescent in particular is quite striking, with a lovely vista of the rest of the city in the valley, with green hills on the other side. The rich people living in the crescent tried not to be too upset with us foreigners taking in their view.

If I had a skateboard, this would be an awesome grind.

And we went to pubs and Indian restaurants, and the food was good if not overly healthy. But that pretty much goes without saying at this point.

Final Score: 7.5/10.0