Here’s the 12th post sharing our adventures in the British Isles and Ireland from September 29 to October 17, 2025, for genealogy, business, and sightseeing. Hope you enjoy it!
Saturday, October 11, 2025
On our last day with the group, we were on the bus by 8:00 a.m. and off to Bath, a historic city in southwest England. We had driven through Bath, a UNESCO World Heritage site, during the independent part of the trip, but the purpose of this visit was to visit the Roman Baths, which were constructed on the site between 60 and 70 AD.
Walking from the bus to the baths, we passed some interesting things.
The water in these baths originates from rainfall in the Mendip Hills. It percolates down into limestone aquifers about 10,000 feet deep. The geothermal energy heats the water to between 150 and 200 degrees, and under pressure, it rises through faults in the limestone and forms the baths.
After we left the baths, we sought out our (becoming) traditional ice-cream lunch. It’s relatively inexpensive and filling. Amazing that we did this on cool days, because usually, we indulge in outdoor ice cream in warmer weather.
Fun Facts About Bath
- There’s a famous village in Bath called Cheddar, which is where the cheese of the same name comes from. Cheese is big in England, as are orchards.
- The accents sound like pirates in Bath, because the actor who played in the Pirates of the Caribbean came from the area.
- There are more UNESCO listed buildings in Bath than anywhere else in the country.
- Bath has 100,000 residents.
- The University of Bath is one of the best, after Oxford and Cambridge.
- All the buildings in the City of Bath are made of bath stone, a type of sandstone.
- Jane Austen lived in Bath (Pride & Prejudice, Sense & Sensibility, etc.).
- Mary Shelly lived in Bath and wrote Frankenstein there.
And then it was back to Stonehenge! It’s amazing to think that my Silverthorn relatives lived in the nearby village of Amesbury. Maybe they helped build it!
The closest town to Stonehenge is Amesbury, and as I mentioned, my 6th, 7th, and 8th great grandfathers were born in Amesbury! I wondered if they would have visited Stonehenge, and they probably did.
“Average people visited Stonehenge in the 1600s, but they were not paying customers and were free to wander around the monument. It was not until the 1900s that admission tickets were introduced to control visitors and protect the site.” From Google AI.
Unfortunately, they do not allow people to walk among the stones anymore, with certain exceptions. This is because too many people either defaced them or tried to chisel off pieces as souvenirs. The nerve!
Maybe they will see this?
And then it was back to London where we’d spend a few days at Jim’s conference and then two more days of rewarding ourselves by staying at a fancy hotel near Buckingham Palace!
The bus dropped us back at the Park Plaza Riverbank, and we said goodbye to our director, bus driver, and our traveling companions, who became friends. The Park Plaza is a very nice hotel, with impeccable service, so we were happy to return. On our first stay, a week prior, our room faced the interior walls of the hotel, so all we saw was other rooms. On this stay, we had a slightly better view, as it looked over a street to another hotel. . .
We rarely have this food at home, but for some reason, we had been wanting KFC. It probably meant we were homesick and needed some greasy Americana. We wisely plotted a walk to a KFC on Google Maps, but the poor app just got confused and we became so lost that we almost gave up. Finally, we found the little hole in the wall, picked up our food, and then had to find our way back to the hotel, where we dug in. It was “finger lickin’ good!”
Tomorrow, a transfer to Jim’s conference hotel. Not our favorite lodgings, for sure! More to come. . .
