Just Step Around the Sinking Stones, It's Only King Ethelbert

Pulteney Bridge Over the River Avon in Bath, England

If there were a competion between Florence, Italy and Bath, England for the most Retail Shops per square mile....Bath would come in second....but not by much.

This town has it goin' on. A very trendy downtown. Lots of bus traffic. Lots of tourists. Lots of gridlock. Lots of coffee shops. Lots of fun.

I enjoyed it all.

Bath Abbey

Every school kid in the UK who was not touring London, was touring Bath. Makaila and I cam to Bath to see the Abbey (not a Cathedral since the Bishop does not reside there. I suppose we could now call  us Dublin Abbey since the Bishop does not reside in Dublin. It sounds so...high church.)

This is a big place, but not a Mega-Cathedral like York and Lincoln (my terminology).

 The most unique aspect of the Abbey is that the choir does not have a back panel (my terminology) and thus it is not cut into three sections: Nave, Choir and back Chapel. So the affect is one long continuous aisle...front to back.

But, it does have my favorite ceiling design: fans. These are excellent.

We saw these in the Cloisters at Glouscester, which soundsa bit like a thriller from Dan Brown. Besides Cathedrals and Abbeys have bragging rights of dead King's bones, or a portion of the Magna Carta or the Mappa Mundi...lots of these cathedrals and abbeys talk about which Tom Hanks or Harry Potter movie was filmed in their church structure.

Holy Family?...not sure of the concept.

The Sacraments? I suppose we do those.

Ancient relics of the Benedictine Founder from 937 AD?......I guess they are around her somewhere but we lost track of them during the War of the Roses.

Which scence from which Harry Potter movie used which portion of the Cathedral? EVERYONE in town knows the answer to that!

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Also, another curious thing about the Abbey. I have never seen SO many plaques on the walls and floors as I saw today.

The floors held more bones per square foot....even more than I ever saw in Florence. The result was that the floors were collapsing and they were on a major project to shore them up. I'd like to talk to the guy whose idea it was to bury the bones beneat the aisle stones because they are paying for that mistake right now.

Baptismal Fount in side chapel.

Main Baptismal Fount Near the back of the sanctuary.

The Abbey itself is in good shape, a tad cluttered but it did not appear as if there were major walls falling or the roof sagging. Granted the floor stones are shifting due to rotting bones...always a danger in Medieval Churches but a fine place.

Makaila and I took the train to Bath. We know have this ride the train around England down pat. We haven't climbed on board the wrong train for weeks....though in our defence....neither the signboards in the station nor the train crew announced the actuall name of the train.

But in the end. The journey is the goal. 

If so, we succeeded.

Peace,  Bob